


About Last Night

by Hermoginny



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Lesbian Sex, Romance, Smut, lesbian love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:47:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25866922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermoginny/pseuds/Hermoginny
Summary: Ginny's brain is reeling from the memory of what happened in the Prefect's bathroom.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 19
Kudos: 98





	1. 6:00 am - Ginny

_The Morning After_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ginny was having an odd morning.

One half of her brain was reeling from the memory of what had happened in the Prefect's bathroom the night before. The other half (the more primal part, she suspected) was bathing in warm recollections of what had been happening in the Prefect's bath just before that.

Ginny had never felt anything so real before, so _true_. Until now she had only ever had one crush in her life, and that was on Harry. She had liked him because he was good, and brave, and kind; and because he was the Boy Who Lived. He was friends with her brothers, he got along with her whole family - and he was close to Hermione. From the moment Ginny met Hermione she had wanted to know her better; to be close to her, too.

At first, Ginny assumed that her attraction was Platonic, in the most literal sense of the word. Who wouldn’t admire the smartest witch in her year? She was drawn to Hermione's insightful mind and easy confidence in matters of importance. Not in the social sphere, perhaps, but where it counted Hermione never faltered.

She was so bright - almost incandescent - this strong, determined girl who didn’t take rubbish from Ron, or The Boy Who Lived, or from anyone else. Alongside her intelligence came a conviction like nothing Ginny had ever encountered. Ginny hoped that she would 'grow up' like Hermione, knowing and caring about things that mattered. 

What she had with Hermione was something that mattered. 

It was only once they were both older, and the idea of intimacy had already entered the heads and conversations of her classmates that Ginny began to open her eyes to something even more alluring in Hermione's exceptional mind; not to mention her smooth wrists, elegant posture, appealing physique. Ginny remembered the moment when she had started seeing Hermione in an altogether new light.

* * * 

**The last day of August**

They had been at the Burrow together over the summer as usual, and as usual they had been sharing Ginny's bed. Ruefully did Ginny now reflect on how many times she had slept beside Hermione without a second thought, except perhaps for want of more bedspace. Now the idea of Hermione pressed in closely beside her under Ginny's thinning duvet wearing nothing but her nightclothes; Hermione . . .

It was the night before the start of term, and Ginny had just come tromping up the stairs from a final round of Quidditch with the boys, still carrying the cool night air on her skin. She palmed the handle of her door habitually and stepped into her room to find Hermione, freshly showered and completely naked except for a pair of thin, practical briefs which were making their way over the curve of her rear, guided by two slender thumbs. 

Wet brown hair sent remnant drops of water running along a plane of milky smooth skin and drew Ginny’s eyes downward to land on their sumptuous destination. The older girl was looking out the window, and continued to dress unperturbedly as she inquired after Ginny’s game. 

Hermione had probably forgotten this moment entirely. There was no reason at all for it to stand out to her: she had never been ashamed of her body and, after all, she had simply been getting dressed. But for Ginny, the sight of Hermione's smooth back and shapely shoulders, her deft fingers running casually over her feminine figure as she prepared for sleep . . . she’d lit a fire inside Ginny: deeper, hotter, and lower than any flame that had ever been ignited there before.

Ginny barely managed to recover her breath and reply with a semblance of normalcy that the game had been "brilliant, thanks," while her eyes made their way along Hermione's spine and over her supple back end, towards the place where her thighs met. Brilliant indeed. The flame inside her burned hotter and she drank in Hermione's movements as the older girl slipped a shirt over her head, turning to face Ginny as she did. 

Supple, well-shaped breasts disappeared beneath a thin layer of cotton as Ginny tried to hide the lust in her expression. Fortunately, Hermione seemed to attribute the glow in her cheeks to time spent on the Quidditch pitch, and accepted Ginny's hurried departure for the shower at face value. 

The shower was usually the place Ginny turned to for what she liked to think of as 'me time,’ but she had never 'taken a shower' with the idea of one particular person in mind before. More often than not, it was just simple and satisfying sensation. This time, however, Ginny replayed each of Hermione's movements in her mind’s eye. Every placement of fabric on skin, every graceful curve of Hermione's body. . . she willed those discerning brown eyes to swim into the front of her mind as she brought herself to the edge of satisfaction, and then - suddenly, spectacularly, over it.

Even this was different now, Ginny thought to herself as she slowly finished washing. It was like gaining a new sense. Everything in her vision was colored with the soft lilac hue of Hermione, and she glowed at the prospect of seeing her every day during their next nine months spent together at Hogwarts. 

Sleeping beside Hermione that night, Ginny allowed herself the pleasure of resting one foot against the older girl's calf. Hermione didn't seem to notice, and quickly drifted off to sleep. Minutes or hours later, Ginny had been brave (or reckless) enough to lay one hand lightly atop a cotton-covered hip. She fell asleep relishing the feel of warm, soft skin creating electric currents where it came in contact with her own. Nothing had ever felt better, or more obviously _right._

But now, she was full of uncertainty. What if Hermione didn't feel the same way? Ginny had never questioned their mutual affection before. Then again, they had never been _affectionate_ like this before. From their first night together, Ginny hadn't been nervous at all. She could see the truth etched all over Hermione's face. The intensity in her heavy-lidded eyes and her expectant lips, her shortness of breath and that _exquisite_ pink flush in her skin. Even her pores seemed to open up to Ginny, asking her to explore them; to touch her, to learn every inch of her.

And Ginny _had_ touched _every_ inch of her: kissed, licked, brushed, gripped firm thighs, pliable breasts, thick hair and soft, soft skin. Mapping Hermione’s body felt like riding a Firebolt with dragon's blood flowing through your veins. Ginny had never felt so natural, so capable, so free. And Hermione had opened herself up to Ginny in ways which the younger girl had never even dared to dream about.

Hermione on the edge, or even wanting to be, was a different creature entirely from the thoroughly rational bookworm she was to the rest of the world. Hidden away in the mild new growth of the Forbidden Forest or the corner of a dusty classroom, Hermione became playful, brazen, and unrelenting in the fulfillment of her need. Her fervor fanned the flames of Ginny's already considerable desire whenever they were _alone_ together, leading Ginny to do things that would have mortified her - if she hadn't been so busy reveling in them. 

Ginny still couldn't believe that she could want someone so much - and so constantly! But now, now she was experiencing real doubt for perhaps the first time in her adolescent life. What if the time they spent together didn't matter as much to Hermione as it did to Ginny? What if it didn't really matter to her at all? 

What if her wanker of a brother had ensured that yesterday was the last time she would ever get to put so much as a finger on (or inside) Hermione? The last time Ginny could lose herself in full lips, soft skin, hot-wet-heat? If she had to choose between her wand and Hermione's touch, she wasn't sure which one she'd pick. Sweet Merlin, the way Hermione tasted when she was wet and ready for Ginny to take her over: the way her lips parted, her tongue danced, her smooth stomach squirmed and her hips ground into Ginny's mouth when she was impatient for release. . .

Wanting to steel herself against the day with the help of some of her fondest memories, Ginny made sure that the curtains of her four poster were shut tight, and cast a silencing charm around them to ensure herself the privacy she preferred to reminisce on some of her favorite moments spent _alone_ with Hermione.


	2. Just past noon - Hermione

"Didn't want to stick around for the Weasley showdown? I thought you could use an ear, or a shoulder."

Hermione smiled ruefully at Harry and walked mechanically out of the Great Hall, down the steps to the grounds. They made their way towards a little copse of trees by the lake, and Harry allowed her a few moments of silence before asking gently, "Do you want to talk about it, 'Mione?" 

She looked gratefully into his bright green eyes.   
"Yes. No. I don't know. Oh Harry, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Nothing like this has ever happened to me."

"You've never..." Harry searched for the right words before Hermione interjected.

"Fallen in love with a girl before?"

"You're, in love with her then, are you?" Harry managed to keep his voice steady, or at least Hermione didn’t seem to notice anything unusual in it. She was staring dreamily at the surface of the lake, which was rippling gently outward from the tip of a single tentacle poking out from the water. 

"Yes.” She seemed to be speaking to herself, and her voice matched the distant look in her eyes. Harry shifted, betraying his slight discomfort, and Hermione snapped back into herself.

“I mean, No - I mean I don’t know! I don't seem to know much of anything anymore. Everything was so simple last year! Thinking I fancied Ron the clueless wonder, not worrying about what would happen if we actually - well, you know - because it was never really going to happen.   
And Ginny was just my best friend, and Ron’s little sister. But now she's, Ginny. Funny, talented, charismatic, gorgeous Ginny, who I can't even look at without having to catch my breath . . . and I can't look at Ron at all."

"You never felt this way about Ron?" Harry asked, recovering himself.

Hermione replied without hesitation. "I've never felt this way about anybody.” She paused as they looked at one another; and then quickly, awkwardly away.

“I don’t know how to talk about something like this. Something so. . . well, so unusual. I’ve never even met a. . . girl who likes girls before.” Hermione blushed as she said the words out loud for the first time. “It feels like being under the Imperius Curse, Harry. When she's near me, I can't think of anything or anyone else. Her scent draws me in like a summoning charm, and when she touches me, or kisses me, or gives me that look, I just melt into her like potion in a hot cauldron. I can feel it in my whole body . . ." 

She blushed and quickly tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. 

"Have you ever felt this way about anyone, Harry?"

"Wha, me? Well er, once, yeah . . ." it was Harry's turn to blush.

"About Cho?" Hermione replied conversationally.

"Well, erm, no, not Cho. About . . . about Ginny, actually," Harry muttered, now casting his eyes out over the lake, where the tentacle had disappeared beneath the surface.

"Oh Harry! Oh, Harry. I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have let me go on like that! I had no idea. It was so tactless of me, I'm no better than Ron really, I . . ." she petered out apologetically. 

"No, don't feel badly Hermione, you didn’t do anything wrong. It seems that I’ve either missed my opportunity, or I didn't have one in the first place." They shared a moment of self-conscious silence before Harry championed onward. "So what are you going to do now? Are you going to keep seeing each other?"

"No, I don't think so. No. We can't possibly . . ." Hermione trailed off.

"Does Ginny know that?" Harry looked at her sidelong, eyes downcast and knuckles clenched against her Advanced Rune Translation book, and noted how remarkable it was that Hermione seemed to have completely forgotten she had an exam directly after lunch.

"Yes. Well, sort of. I mean, I think she must, anyway.”

"Are you sure? I'm only asking because at lunch she seemed rather, well, affectionate."

"Oh Merlin, I'm so embarrassed. Was it that obvious? Everyone must know by now, mustn't they?"

"I don't think anyone else knows, actually. I only noticed because I know to look for it now, that’s all. I imagine there've been a hundred little things I could've picked up on earlier, but I didn't because I wasn't looking for them. I don’t even know how long the two of you have been . . . Anyway, I don’t think you need to worry about other people finding out. Remember how no one guessed that Hagrid was part giant? People don’t see what they don’t expect to see." 

“Well I certainly wasn’t expecting to see Ginny like this - and now I see her everywhere I look. Now I don’t know how to stop seeing her.”

“Don’t, then. Don’t stop seeing her. Even if other people do find out, so what? they’ll probably think it’s brilliant, for the most part. Just maybe stay out of the Prefect’s bathroom, at least for a while.” They caught each other’s eyes again. Hermione smiled slightly, and Harry held her gaze.

“I think that if you expect something to be horrible - like you and Ginny being together around other people - then it will probably be horrible. But if you expect it to be good, well . . . then, it might be really good. It might even be kind of, great." 

For a moment Hermione felt hope bubbling up in her chest at Harry’s words, and her thoughts drifted gaily back to hours spent buried in soft, freckled skin and long, lustrous red hair. But then the memory of a different head of red hair staring transfixedly at her with horror in his eyes came searing back into her chest and burst her burgeoning bubble where it had begun to rise.

"But Harry, even if Ginny did want to, you know, be together" she said, coloring slightly, "What about Ron? You didn't see him last night . . ." she shuddered at the recollection. "He'll never accept it, and you know how horrible he can be. I can't have Ron hating me - at least, not any more than he already does," she finished miserably. 

Hermione slumped forward and dropped her face into her hands, occasioning Harry to run one hand along her shoulders and pull her protectively into his shoulder. 

"Don't worry about what Ron thinks." A small, muffled burst of laughter came up from the region of his necktie. "I don't mean that it's going to be easy. You're not wrong about him, from the earful I got last night he is probably going to be pretty skeeved off about this for a while . . . But what's done is done, and he's going to be horrible either way. So what it really comes down to is whether you’d rather deal with Ron and lose what you've got with Ginny at the same time, or deal with Ron while licking your wounds with one of the best-looking, most interesting girls in the whole school?" 

"Well when you put it that way . . ." Hermione shifted her head a little to rest it on top of Harry's left shoulder. "She’s something, isn't she? Outgoing and athletic, but also so intelligent, and the things she can do with her hands! if dexterity is what makes a great seeker then she'll play for the Pros without question- " 

Hermione's eyes lifted alongside her spirits to meet Harry's suddenly wistful expression. She stopped short, and said sympathetically, "But what about you in all this, Harry? My happiness is no triumph if it comes at your expense." 

Harry’s face took on an expression between a shrug and a grimace. "Don't worry about me, Hermione. After all, I'm The Boy Who Lived, remember? If I've made it through four - or is it five now? - attempts on my life, I think I can survive this. No guarantees, mind you," he tilted his head down towards her and smiled his slightly-crooked smile.

Hermione's heart was full of gratitude for Harry's unflinching support. "When did you get to be so sensible, Harry?"

"Must be from all the time I've spent with Professor Trelawney," Harry jested. "For instance, I always knew you were too smart to spend all your time hanging around with Ron and me. Now I see that while we've been obsessing over Quidditch, you've been off having a love life. I wonder how Ginny manages to do both?" he posed the question with a tone of mock-sincerity.

Hermione smiled appreciatively. Harry's reaction was the antithesis of Ron’s, and better than she could have hoped for. Here was her best friend, not only accepting her, but actively encouraging her to go after the girl they both wanted.

"I love you, Harry. I hope you know that. Meeting you is one of the most important things that has ever happened to me. You’ve changed my life."

Harry hugged her tighter. "I hope you mean that as friends," he grinned. "Otherwise the four of us are going to be all mixed up over each other in every way possible - except me wanting to snog Ron, that is."

"Or Ron wanting to snog you," Hermione quipped back.

"D'you know, I think the person who’d have the hardest time of that would still be Ron." They both chuckled, and Harry squeezed Hermione's shoulder affectionately. "I love you too, Hermione. Even if you have been snogging my would-be-girlfriend."

At these words, Hermione couldn't help but remember a hundred exquisite little details involved in snogging Ginny. She rested her head on Harry’s cheek and fell into silence, allowing her mind to wander freely through her memories. Eventually they rose and walked back up the sloping lawn into the castle where, in 5 minutes time, Hermione would still manage to ace her Ancient Runes exam.


	3. 2:00 pm - Ginny

Ginny turned a corner and her heart skipped a beat. Hermione was walking towards her with two large, heavy books clutched to her chest like liferafts. "Hey there 'Mione! Fancy a jaunt to the Prefect's bath? I think I just saw Ronald headed that way, so now's the perfect time."

Hermione looked wildly around before scolding Ginny about conversing loudly in public places. 

"Relax," Ginny replied, "No one knows what we're talking about, and I've just seen Harry who says that my dear brother has shut himself up inside his four-poster and is refusing to come out for lessons. The height of maturity, him."

"That's supposed to relax me, is it?" Hermione's voice was full of anxiety. 

"Yes, actually - he's the biggest git I know, so any time he's definitely off elsewhere is a bit of a relief."

Hermione motioned towards an empty corner of the corridor. "Don't be unkind Ginny, it's not his fault that he came in to use that bathroom last night - he is a Prefect, afterall." 

"Well he could've at least asked Boris the Bewildered whether it was occupied, he's an idiot for barging in like that. Imagine if Draco had been taking a dump or something," Ginny chortled at her little joke, but Hermione did not. 

"Perhaps he did ask Boris, and Boris gave him the wrong answer - He didn't get his name by chance. If I had a knut for every time I've stumbled in on Alicia in the bath, it's a wonder she makes it to Quidditch practice the amount of time she spends in there. . . Anyway, all that's beside the point." 

Hermione continued, but began avoiding Ginny's eyes. "Ginny, I don't think we can keep this up any longer. Perhaps Ron coming in on us last night was a sign that we shouldn't be - doing what we're doing - anymore." She glanced around warily as she spoke, before looking apologetically back at Ginny.

"What?" Ginny couldn't believe her ears. Even now, just looking into Hermione's eyes through her long lashes, she could feel the electricity crackling between them. It gave her the same tingling feeling that she got from performing a really excellent bit of charmwork: warm and intoxicating. 

"Hermione you can’t be serious! Don't let Ron - of all people - be the reason that we can't . . ." she glanced sidelong at the passersby before continuing, "the reason that we can't be together anymore."

Her eyes spoke of things that even Ginny didn't dare to say out loud in a crowded corridor, and they seemed to win Hermione over where words had failed. The older girl's lips parted, and for one second Ginny could have sworn she was leaning in closer, her eyelids lowering . . .

But then Hermione spoke instead, and her words were distant, as if coming from another place entirely. "No. I'm sorry Ginny, we can't do it anymore. I can't do it anymore. Other people are bound to find out, and then . . ." Her voice trailed off and Ginny, with her senses dulled by pain, still noticed how un-Hermioneish it was to speak in terms of such uncertainty.

As for Ginny herself, it felt like a hummingbird had been trapped inside her heart, beating its tiny wings a thousand miles a minute. But it was still the heart of a Seeker: it dove full-tilt after what felt like her last chance to grasp Hermione's own, golden heart in her hand before it flew away to a place where Ginny could not reach it.

"And then, what? What of it? Honestly 'Mione, what does it matter if the rest of the school knows that we're, together?" Ginny spoke more loudly than before, and Hermione flinched noticeably. 

"We're not together, Ginny - it's not like you asked me to be your girlfriend or anything,” both girls looked shiftily at one another before Hermione stumbled onward. “We're just, exploring. Or we have been, but it doesn't seem - prudent - to keep exploring anymore."

"Exploring?" Ginny's voice was full of mirth, and she grew more emphatic as she spoke. "That's what you want to call this? That’s what you call writhing around underneath me, bucking your hips into my mouth while you moan my name? Although I suppose I do explore your hot, wet cunt with the length of my tongue while you- " 

Hermione’s cheeks turned a bright, blazing red. Her eyes were saucer-sized and incredulous as she cut Ginny off mid-speech. "Are You Mad?!"

"You bet your sweet arse I'm mad! I'm mad as hell at Ronald for his part in all this, and I'm feeling a bit peeved off at this stiff, cowardly Hermione I'm rowing with at the moment, as well."

"That's not fair, Ginny! I'm not being a coward, I just don't think it's worth it anymore!" 

At these words Ginny deflated like a balloon, and the look of pain on her face made Hermione continue in a much softer voice. "It's just too big a risk. I think you're incredible Ginny, you know that. These past weeks have been unimaginable. I had know idea I could feel something so intensely for somebody, or with somebody, or what have you . . ." she finished lamely. 

"Do you want me or not, Hermione?" Ginny was done arguing, her jaw was set. 

"It's not that simple! I want a thousand different things, it doesn't mean I'm going to get them, necessarily - or that I even should, for that matter!"

"Like what?"

"Like, well, like peace in the Wizarding World for example, for Harry not to be fending off Voldemort every year like clockwork, or for- "

"ENOUGH, HERMIONE!" Ginny's temper had reached its limit. "You don't want anyone to know what you want, do you?" Her defiant eyes bore into Hermione's. "What is it that you’re so afraid of revealing, Hermione - do you even know? Because it seems to me like you're scared of yourself."

And with that, Ginny turned on her heel and stormed away. She stormed away in the opposite direction of her next lesson, and was consequentially ten minutes late and rather sweaty as she ascended the ladder to Professor Trelawney's room. Fortunately for Ginny, her arrival agreed with a prediction that Trelawney had made to the class about her 'flustered and untimely entrée', and she was therefore met without punishment.

* * * 

Ginny sank, fuming, into a large purple poof surrounded by the fumes of Trelawney's unwarranted fire. Her mind was reeling. What was Hermione so worried about? As far as Ginny was concerned, Ron finding out meant that the worst was over.  
Frankly she was almost relieved - now that the shock and discomfort of the moment had worn off - that he had found out about them in a manner which was definitive, concise, and entirely non-verbal. Ron’s reaction had always been Hermione's biggest concern, too: or so Ginny had thought, at least. 

Now, however, Ginny's confidence was beginning to give way to the idea that Hermione didn't actually want what Ginny did - or, at least, not as much as she did. The hummingbird in Ginny’s heart was mostly still now, aside from the occasional quiver of pain. She found herself longing for its prior state of frantic activity. Already Hermione was starting to feel a lifetime away.

But no, Ginny could not allow herself to give up so easily. Being with Hermione was the thing she had wanted most in all her working memory. She could not, would not let her go that easily. 

As the fire popped and crackled beside her and Trelawney swept back and forth in flurries of fabric and heavy perfume, Ginny pondered how she might remind Hermione of what exactly it was that they had discovered together, and why - far from keeping it hidden away from other people - they should be displaying it happily as the most magical thing in all of Hogsmeade.


	4. Noon - Hermione

Hermione was dreading lunch. She considered skipping it altogether, but she had an Ancient Runes test later that day, and her fear of confronting her Weasleys was outweighed only by her need for proper nutrition before an exam. Ron had missed breakfast, but it was highly unlikely that he would ever miss two meals in a row. 

He knew. Knew what, exactly? Not that it mattered what Hermione called it. Ron had seen them with his own eyes, which meant that he would call it whatever wanted. 'Disgusting,' had been one of his choicest words. Ron thought that she was disgusting. And that meant that she had made his sister disgusting, too, or so Hermione imagined, regardless of who had been doing what to whom. They had both done plenty. Part of her still wanted to do so much more . . .

But a more insistent part of her (the one that often spoke in the voice of Professor McGonagall) knew that they could never keep it to themselves anymore, not once Ron knew about it. The only thing for it was to back away from it as quickly and as gracefully as possible, and hope that all of their friendships made it through intact. 

She pasted on the broadest smile she could muster and stepped into the Gryffindor common room, where she was immediately greeted by Harry. Relief flooded her as she looked around and saw no red hair in sight, excepting a small ginger lock that Fred had left inexplicably pinned to the notice board with a sign saying 'Don’t Touch - for your own sake". 

Harry, anticipating her concern, spoke first. "Ron had a, erm, a bit of a long night, I think he might be sleeping through lunch today as well as breakfast."

"Oh." Hermione was unsure of what to say. Despite her relief, she couldn't help but feel the weight behind Harry's words. "Right, well, shall we go down, then?"

Ten quiet minutes later found them sitting at the Gryffindor table. Hermione cracked a large tome open against her water goblet and tried to lose herself in Advanced Rune Translation while Harry worked his way through two rounds of kippers. She was just pondering the dual nature of the Contingere Rune when her senses were alerted to the gentle brush of robes and long strands of vibrant red hair splashing across her page, briefly obscuring the etymology:

Latin: con- (“together”) + tangō (“touch”).  
She quickly turned the page.

"Hello, all!" Ginny sat down loudly and brightly. She pulled a plate and goblet towards herself, leaning heavily across Hermione as she reached for the water pitcher. Hermione stiffened at the other girl's touch, forgetting to breathe momentarily.  
Ginny's confidence was astounding to her, and her scent was intoxicating: She smelled like peonies and mahogany and clean linen. Ginny lingered a little longer than necessary across the older girl’s lap, and when she pulled her arm back towards her plate she brought Hermione’s attention along with it.

As per usual, Ginny didn't miss a beat. She carried on chatting while she piled food onto her plate: asking Parvati about a new bangle, discussing Quidditch tactics with Angelina, would Harry please pass the pumpkin juice? Hermione's eyes were still pointed at her book, but her thoughts were consumed by the memory of Ginny’s touch, by what she and Ginny might have been doing if they were away from all the prying eyes; somewhere alone together . . .

Almost as if she could hear her thoughts, Ginny set her goblet down and dropped her hand casually under the table onto Hermione's bare thigh, where it landed just below the hem of her skirt. The contact hit Hermione like lightning and she felt all her focus narrow into the small, subtle motions of Ginny's fingertips. 

Hermione was concentrated on maintaining the evenness of her breath when a very different presence made itself known. Ron slouched down onto the bench across the table, dropping his bookbag noisily onto the floor as he did. 

"Morning mate, glad you made it down after all," said Harry in a gallant attempt at comradery, though it was obvious that all the air had just gone out of the room.  
"Dunno what's good about it," Ron replied, shooting a scathing glance at Ginny while avoiding Hermione’s gaze entirely - although his scowl deepened as his eyes flitted past the place where she sat. Hermione was immensely glad that Ron could not see Ginny’s hand, which still rested stubbornly on her leg. Harry’s voice braved its way through the silence once again. "Bangers, Ron? They’re bang on today."

Harry handed the plate of sausages over, and Ron ladled several out with his fork before holding it back out towards Harry. "Pass it here," called Ginny before Harry had extended his hand, compelling Ron to pass the plate to his sister. 

Hermione felt that Ginny was taking things one step too far with her apparent disregard for the tension between them all, and it quickly became clear that Ron was of the same mind. 

The simple gesture of handing off the plate proved more than Ron could manage: instead of passing Ginny the dish, he let it clatter violently onto the table in front of her so that bangers scattered left and right, and a few rolled onto the floor. Hermione started, Ginny scowled, and Ron turned to look his sister full in the face with something close to hatred.

"Didn't you get enough to eat last night? Besides, I didn't think you went for sausage." At last his gaze slid covertly over to Hermione, who was staring resolvedly at her book and blushing furiously. 

Ginny, on the other hand, retorted pluckily, "Well you see that's the thing about eating Ronald, you've got to do it over and over again. I'm practically insatiable lately, I can’t get enough. But you're right about one thing, sausage is hardly a good meal - look, Hermione's not taken any bangers either."

"I have to go! . . . study for Arithmancy." Hermione shot upward, leaving the table in such a hurry that her book of Runes lay forgotten atop her unused plate. She was shamefacedly preparing to return for it when Harry came sprinting out after her, book tucked securely under his arm. 

"Er, you forgot this Hermione, I thought you might need it." 

"Thank you Harry; really, thanks." Hermione's gratitude was apparent. 

"Ginny was going to bring it to you, but I thought it might be better if I did."

"Lucky for me you're the only person in the school with faster reflexes than hers." She accepted the book gratefully as they crossed the Great Hall.

Harry replied with a small smile. "Honestly I think she might be faster, but I had more motivation this time."


	5. 10:00 pm - Hermione

The Night Before

Hermione made her way feverishly down the hall towards the Prefect's bathroom. She had been thinking about their meeting all day long: constantly checking the time, and sitting through her lessons with unusual impatience. 

She couldn't even remember what Professor Sinistra had said about star collisions, and what was even more bewildering was that Hermione didn't care. She could read up on Astronomy any old time, but she hadn't seen Ginny - really seen Ginny - in almost a week, and as far as Hermione was concerned, that couldn't wait another minute.

Hermione welcomed the now-familiar butterflies in her stomach as she rounded the last corner to the statue of Boris the Bewildered. There, leaning casually against the statue’s podium, was Ginny: wearing a smirk that took up her entire face.

"Oh hello Hermione, fancy meeting you here. I was just having a nice chat with Boris, despite his refusing to let me into the bathroom."

"Well, you're not a Prefect, are you?" Hermione smiled waggishly and gave Boris a sanctimonious little nod of approval. Ginny turned to face Hermione with a look of playful opposition, and Hermione found herself drawn blissfully into Ginny’s honeyed brown eyes.

"That's just what I told her, m'lady - no Prefects allowed in this bathroom!”

The girls shared a lighthearted giggle while Hermione kept her hands firmly at her sides. There was not enough privacy yet to do the things she was yearning to do to the redhead, but she could no longer tear her eyes away. As nice as she was to look at in general, when Ginny laughed it was like the whole world stopped to enjoy the moment with her. 

"Well. luckily for you, I am a Prefect. And so to you, Sir," she spared a fleeting glance at the statue through increasingly weighted eyelids, "I say 'Codswallop." 

Boris stiffened on his podium and slid smoothly to one side. Ginny took hold of Hermione's hands as they walked through the small archway which the statue had revealed. “Come on then, Prefect, let’s not neglect your sparkling reputation for keeping squeaky clean.”

Before Boris had slid fully back into position, there was a flurry of hair-fingers-lips-tongues and robes, which landed haphazardly onto the tile flooring as the stone archway disappeared behind them.

* * * 

"Fancy a bath, then? You must need one after double Quidditch Practice today," Hermione said conversationally as they slipped off their shoes.

"Are you trying to tell me that I stink?" asked Ginny in a tone of mock-horror. 

Hermione responded without thinking: "Not at all! I love the way you smell."

She colored slightly and both girls fell quiet. Then Ginny’s eyes flashed and she drew closer to Hermione, who felt her temperature rising with every increase in proximity. Their eyes locked, and their breath began to intermingle. A heady warmth flooded through Hermione as she exhaled herself, and breathed in Ginny. 

She was under her spell now, and there was nothing that spellbound Hermione wouldn't do. It was like being under the Imperius curse, but without any of the negative ramifications (at least as far as Hermione could tell). Ginny sealed the enchantment by way of a lingering kiss which left Hermione dazed and dizzy with anticipation - as well as a little wet in the knickers.

A shock of red hair splashed across the clean tile of the bath's edge as Ginny bent to turn a few of the taps. Once the water was flowing, she pulled Hermione down the steps that led to the base of the tub and pushed her lightly onto one near the bottom. Then she leaned over her and took one full lip between her own. 

The water began to lap at their ankles as Hermione allowed herself to be steered into a sort of half-sitting, half-standing position which required a wide distance between her thighs - a space which Ginny promptly occupied.

Ginny deepened the kiss, coaxing Hermione's mouth more fully open with the flat of her tongue. Her hands moved over Hermione, one knotting itself in thick curly hair just above the delicate protrusion of her spine. The other hand roved anywhere it could get a good grip on Hermione, from her jawline to the crook of her hip and every place in-between. 

Hermione surrendered herself willingly to Ginny's affections. She sighed contentedly into Ginny's mouth and slid both arms around the taught muscles of the younger girl’s waist, drawing herself ever-closer into her athletic frame.  
Gods, Ginny felt so good. No, 'Good' wasn't strong enough - it didn’t even come close. No word did; at least no word Hermione knew. Any time Ginny put her lips on her, Hermione forgot about everything that wasn't red hair, soft skin, hard breathing. Nothing else needed remembering, not as long as they had this.

"You'll want to take these off before the bath fills and soaks them through," Hermione said altruistically, reaching down to pull Ginny’s stockings off. 

"Good advice, ‘Mione, but a little too late - you see, I'm wet already," Ginny said roguishly, helping Hermione maneuver the stretch of white cotton over her heel. "But maybe you can still keep dry, if we get your clothes off right away that is."  
"Keep dry, hm? I’d rather not - but I'm certainly ready to be rid of them, anyhow." The boldness of her own words surprised Hermione as they left her mouth. 

Ginny responded by biting her lip and running the palms of her hands firmly up along Hermione’s torso and over her breasts to reach the buttons of her school shirt, which she quickly undid. Hermione arched forward to help Ginny slip her shirtsleeves off and Ginny’s mouth was drawn like a magnet to the newly exposed collarbone which tasted, upon her thorough oral inspection, like book musk and salted caramel. 

Ginny drank Hermione in: her smooth skin and the subtle ripple of her stomach as Ginny’s hands returned to wander all over the older girl’s torso. Hermione’s body was more rounded than her own, more feminine. It curved in all the right places as far as Ginny was concerned, and she had never felt anything so soft.

The water reached Ginny's calves as her lips made their way down Hermione's stomach. When she finally reached her school skirt, Ginny dipped her hands beneath it and slid them lovingly back upward along Hermione’s thighs until they reached the thin fabric of her briefs, which she promptly maneuvered downward and off Hermione's left leg. Having gained access to her target, Ginny stopped bothering with the knickers, which she left to dangle off Hermione’s right calf.

Ginny then returned her hands to Hermione's thighs, this time bringing them inward to knead the supple flesh closest to her center. With eyes full of fire, Ginny brought her lips quickly and fiercely back to Hermione's for a moment before looking her hard in the eyes, as if to ask ' are you ready?’. Then, without breaking her gaze, she slid two fingers fully into Hermione's wet and willing folds. 

Ginny caught Hermione's moan of pleasure in her mouth, breathing in their hot, intermingled breath as she worked her fingers in and out, and into Hermione again. She tongued, mouthed, and kissed her way back down to the hem of Hermione’s skirt, which she flipped upwards with her free right hand.

After taking in the sight of Hermione unbound by fabric, her own fingers half-buried within, Ginny brought her lips to the swollen little bud just above them, dipping her tongue down to taste Hermione’s wetness before running it back up along her clitoris. Hermione, awash with pleasure, moaned and sighed enthusiastically at Ginny’s ministrations. 

From the first touch, any contact from Ginny sent Hermione’s whole body vibrating with pleasure. In experimenting with her own sexuality, Hermione had only managed to achieve completion in a more mechanical way, which included careful planning and execution. With Ginny, however, the slightest brush of hair or skin was enough to render her short of breath and bring her to the edge of abandon. 

It was here, in this secret, exquisite place, that Ron had found them. For all her assuredness, Hermione did not know how to carry the weight of being seen and scrutinized at her most vulnerable. It would have been hard enough to have been found just kissing Ginny, or even to have been attending to her desires. But to be found all-but-entirely exposed, with her legs spread and a wanton expression to match the noises which, she realized only afterwards, she had been making . . . it was unconscionable.  
And the expression on Ron’s face, nevermind the anger which came spewing like venom out of his mouth, was enough to tell her that he agreed entirely with this assessment.


	6. 7:00 pm - Ginny

One Week Later

Time moved sluggishly for Ginny in the aftermath of that night in the Prefects’ Bathroom. She had begun to consider her life in two parts: before that night, and after it. Before it, she had had everything she’d ever wanted. Each day was full of excitement and suspense, and each night full of passion or the blissful imprints that its memory had left on her mind. Now her days were full of pain and uncertainty, and the once sweet memories had turned against her, bitter and hard to banish from her thoughts.

To make things worse, Hermione was inscrutable. It was true that she’d been moping around just as Ginny had, but it seemed equally likely that this was an aftereffect of her falling out with Ron, who had remained snappish and ornery as ever throughout the week. 

He kept staring at the pair of them belligerently whenever they were in close proximity (which was woefully infrequent) as if trying to assess whether they’d had the audacity to keep seeing one another. She wished that his suspicions were well-founded. Ginny had a sinking feeling that Hermione had made a promise not to speak to her anymore in an attempt to appease Ron and maintain their friendship. 

She took solace in Luna’s presence and, when she could get him on his own, in Harry’s. He alone seemed mostly unruffled by what had happened, although it was clear that the tension between his best friends was affecting him as well. 

One day after Quidditch practice, Ginny felt the urge to apologize to Harry for her part in the misery which hung like a cloud over their section of the Gryffindor table. She held him back in the changing rooms until the rest of the team had neared the castle.

“Listen Harry, I’m really sorry for how miffed up this has all gotten. You haven’t done a single thing except to be a good friend and now you’re stuck in the middle of it.”

“S’all right Gin. I’m glad you’ve decided to talk to me about it. I don’t blame you, for the record. This is hardly the first time that Ron and Hermione have gone off on each other.” And then, as an afterthought, “Anyways you can’t help the way you feel about someone, whether you like it or not.”

Ginny saw the understanding in Harry’s face and was struck by her appreciation for him. Why hadn’t she come to him before? It was so nice to talk to someone who knew her, and who knew what had happened, and who liked her anyway. They walked in thoughtful silence up towards the castle, and began the long ascent to Gryffindor Tower. 

“That thing you said earlier about feelings, Harry, it makes it sound like you know exactly what I’m going through - is it true? Has someone been tugging on your heartstrings as well?”

Harry smiled appreciatively at her intuition. “I suppose you could say they have done, yeah,” he finished furtively, showing no inclination to continue on with the topic. 

“Well but who is she - will you tell me? I promise I won’t ask any more questions, I’m just curious to know what sort of girl might be able to capture your interest - and it would be really nice to think about your love life rather than mine for a little while.”

“Erm, I’d rather not say,” Harry tugged absentmindedly on his ear in what Ginny knew to be a characteristic gesture of discomfort. By this time they were quite near the Fat Lady’s portrait - they could hear her practicing her Arias in her frame. 

“Oh come on Harry, please? How can you say no to me when I’m so wounded and pathetic?” Ginny grinned at him self-deprecatingly. Harry’s agitation grew as he turned to face her. 

“You really want to know, do you? Are you sure?”

“Yes! Tell me already, for the love of Merlin!”

And then several things happened at once. The Fat Lady stopped singing just as Harry drew Ginny towards him, placing a firm but gentle hand on both of her arms just above the elbow. His lips caught hers in surprise, and for a moment she knew nothing but the sensation of Harry’s mouth on her own. 

Warm and relatively smooth, Harry was steady in his kiss, not overzealous like the boys she had snogged before Hermione. But, like with them, there was simply no spark: no fire, no longing driven up from the pit of her being like there was when she kissed, or touched, or even looked at Hermione. 

Moving quickly from surprise into abashedness, she gently pushed him away. Forcing her eyes up to meet his, she saw a silhouette behind him standing stockstill beside the recently opened portrait hole. It was, of course, Hermione. 

One pair of deep brown eyes met another as Harry, sensing the change in atmosphere, turned to see what had captured Ginny's full attention. He blanched, and Hermione’s face turned from fury to anguish as the book she had been holding fell cacophonously to the floor. Turning sharply on her heel, she stormed away from the pair of them down the corridor. 

“Hermione!” Ginny tore recklessly down the hallway after her, calling wildly without regard for any circumstance other than the one wherein the girl she loved had just seen her kissing her best friend. “Hermione please! Just talk to me for a moment!”

Up until now, Ginny’s instinct had overwhelmed her thoughts and she went barreling down the hall after her without concern for her next move. But as she neared the door into which Hermione had disappeared, doubt began to creep across Ginny’s mind. 

What if Hermione wasn’t upset about her kissing Harry after all, but rather about Harry kissing her? Hadn’t she made it abundantly clear by her words and her actions all week that she didn’t want to see Ginny, much less talk to her (much less kiss her the way Harry just had)? 

The uncertainty of it, mingled with the pain she still felt acutely, brought her voice quivering down to almost a whisper. “Hermione?” Was all she could manage to get out at first. “It wasn’t, it didn’t . . .” she let her words fall onto the floor alongside her stomach. The silence from the classroom was palpable. Then, slowly, Ginny began to hear sad, shuddering breaths on the other side of the door. 

Hermione was sobbing silently, and Ginny’s heart was pouring out towards the girl in a way that her words could not. “Mione, please,” she tried once more, setting a hand on the door to push it further ajar. It snapped suddenly shut from the other side. 

Now it was Ginny’s turn to cry, and she felt the tears rolling down her face as she slumped to the floor outside the closed classroom door. “It didn’t mean anything to me!” she cried out, and then followed with a whisper, as much to herself as anyone, “nothing else means anything to me.” 

Ginny let her head hang between her arms and cried with abandon until she felt a gentle pressure on her shoulder, and looked up into Harry’s watery green eyes. “I’m so sorry, Ginny. Now I’ve gone and mucked it up just as badly as the rest of you, or worse.”

Meeting Harry’s eyes, Ginny was filled with tenderness. She couldn’t be angry with him for what he had done, understanding it all too well as the indomitable desire of his heart bursting forth. It was exactly how she felt about Hermione: If only these things came reciprocated.

“Oh please, I pushed you to that every step of the way. Just one more thing that I’ve gone and ruined, really. I’m so sorry Harry. I wish it could be so easy, so wonderful, as that. I really do. I didn’t choose to feel this way.” 

“I know you didn’t Gin. Believe me. Come on, let’s get you up.” Harry extended two hands and pulled Ginny upright. “Why don’t you head back to the common room and get some sleep? I think Hermione and I need to have a heart to heart.” He ushered her gently down the hallway before returning to the door of the classroom where Hermione sat, hidden away from the feelings that none of them knew how to manage. 

* * * 

Ginny climbed sniffily back into the portrait hole to find Ron sitting together with none other than Fred and George, who were administering a strange, glittering substance to a small potted plant, which appeared to be steaming. Upon her entrance, all three looked up. The shock of seeing her older brothers back inside the castle surprised Ginny into momentary silence, and she walked dazedly towards the three of them.

While Ron averted his eyes, Fred and George jumped up to meet her. “Hey there little sis! Fancy a quick word with your kin? Ron will be here tending to our little experiment, won’t you Ron?” George declared as they stood up. 

“Of course he will! He knows anything that happens to it, is the same as what happens to him.” Fred chimed in, casting a last look at Ron, who remained surly but sat still beside the fantastical flora.

Ginny made her way out of the common room, up through the 6th year boys’ bedroom and out the open window where she clambered onto the roof with her brothers in tow. Such was her surprise at seeing the twins, and so emotionally drained was she by this point that this confrontation (for surely, that’s why they had come) was a most welcome one, whatever it brought. 

“So Gin,” Fred said conversationally as they all shifted to find steady seating on the sloping roof tiles, “we hear you’ve been a bit miffed about muff.”

“For Merlin’s sake. This is going to be worse than I thought,” Ginny groaned by way of reply. 

“Oh come on little sister - Fred and I are entirely sympathetic to your predilections, being that we share the same partialities ourselves. And we applaud your choice in someone older and - even more impressively - wiser than yourself! It’s more than we dared hope for, really.”

“Even our git of a brother knows what a catch Hermione is, that’s why he’s so hacked off,” Fred added. “That, and the fact that he can’t bring himself to go back into the Prefect’s bathroom, so he’s stuck using the lesser toilets like the rest of us.”

Ginny laughed, for the first time in what felt like an eon. Of course Fred and George didn’t care. They had never been bothered about anyone else’s business before, why would that change now? Ginny hadn’t exactly been feeling anxious about it, but still it was a huge relief to know that at least two of her brothers were, as always, on her side. 

“So tell us, sis, is Hermione as deft without a pen in her hand as she is with one? Or does she bring it with her? Seems like the kind of thing she’d be into,” George finished, winking mischievously as a blush spread across Ginny’s cheeks. 

His comment led her mind down a tunnel of lascivious thoughts until a voice (which ironically, sounded not unlike Hermione’s) reminded her that as things stood, she would never get another chance to reenact any of what she’d been imagining. 

Her face fell, and she looked off towards the black lake as she said wistfully, “I don’t think I’ll ever get to know for sure, it seems like my chance to find out expired with Ron stampeding in like a rhino and smashing up my happiness.”

George’s tone was almost gentle, something Ginny had heard only a handful of times in all her memory. “Nah, I don’t buy it for a second - no one can keep away from you Gin! You’re smart, funny, athletic, and you don’t take nonsense. What more could anyone want, bloke or lass?” 

“And, not that George and I can tell, but it would seem that collective opinion considers you to be rather good-looking. We just see freckles and the little girl who carried her stuffed dragon around until she was 11, but we won’t tell Hermione about that,” George finished. 

“At least, we won’t tell her again,” Fred concluded. 

Ginny breathed the night sky deeply in and out while Fred and George made a game of recollecting some of Ginny’s less sophisticated childhood habits. Before retiring to her four-poster, she hugged both her brothers more tightly than usual, and kissed each on top of their shaggy red heads. 

They demonstrated their affection by continuing to reminisce about the time they had switched her and Ron’s shortpants (Ginny had never been one for dresses) and Molly had spent twenty minutes trying to force a squirming Ron into too-tight drawers before concluding that he had simply gone a bit pudgy in the thighs. She could hear them laughing raucously as she descended the stairs towards the common room and was, for one small, shining moment, at peace.


	7. 8:00 pm - Hermione

Alone in the relative solace of the empty classroom, Hermione tried to sort through her emotions. She had never felt anything this intense, or frankly, this baffling before. Seeing Ginny kissing Harry, her first instinct was to fall to the floor and sob - or preferably, to disapparate. Her second instinct was to run over, wrest Harry out of the way, pin Ginny to the wall and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her while pressing her whole body as closely against Ginny’s as was humanly possible.

Now, hunched on an abandoned desk, she couldn’t help replaying the scene over and over again in her head. What was the expression on Ginny’s face while Harry’s lips were on hers? Had it been discomfort, pain, regret - or were those simply the emotions Hermione wanted to see? And who was she to want anything from Ginny now, after having made her decision? Ginny was perfectly entitled to kiss Harry if she wanted to! But she didn't really want to; did she?

She couldn’t. You couldn’t want to kiss anyone else so soon after having kissed the way they kissed, touched the way they touched. . . could you? Hermione couldn't. She couldn't imagine kissing anyone else ever again. At this thought the tears began to flow afresh, and the painful recollection of Harry and Ginny gave way to an older, much fonder memory of a night at the Burrow, some months (or perhaps a lifetime) ago.

* * *

That Sunday in August

It was the last day of August, and Hermione had been staying at the Burrow all summer. Bunking with Ginny as usual, she couldn’t help but notice how the younger girl had grown: she was taller, older, different somehow. The malleable softness of her adolescence was beginning to cool into a lithe and capable form, and with each day that passed Ginny developed greater confidence of manner which elevated her beyond most of her - and even most of Hermione’s - classmates.

For weeks, Hermione had been having feverish daydreams about scenarios that would bring the two of them into closer, more intimate contact. She was finding it nearly impossible to look the Mr & Mrs Weasley in the eye as of late, given the nature of her fantasies involving their youngest and only daughter. Too quickly, their last night at the Burrow arrived, and endowed Hermione with a sense of urgency which made her bolder and more adventurous than usual.

Coming back from her shower, Hermione lingered in her towel on Ginny’s side of the sheets, indulging in her scent on the pillow and peering occasionally through the window to check on the game’s progress. Finally, she saw the procession walking back into the garden, with Ginny bringing up the rear. She watched them make their way towards the house, imagining a world where Ginny glanced up to find her leaning with her breasts pressed lightly against the cool windowpane, bared for the world to see. Just thinking about it made her nipples pert enough to feel the rough cotton scratch of her towel against them, She let it fall to the floor as she selected her most flattering pair of knickers from her trunk, and then made a meal of situating them around her ankles while waiting for the sound of Ginny’s distinctive step on the landing, praying to Merlin that none of the boys found the wrong doorknob on their exhausted journey up the long staircase towards their own beds.

At last it came: the playful, light-footed gambol which announced Ginny’s arrival. Summoning all the sensuality she possessed, Hermione began to pull her knickers slowly and smoothly up her calves as the doorknob clicked and the scent of wind and mahogany chorused around Hermione's hair, causing it to ruffle slightly. In the most casual-but-sultry voice she could muster, Hermione asked after the game.

Ginny’s reply was slightly breathless, and Hermione couldn't help but pivot to look for signs of attentiveness on the redhead’s face. It was one of the boldest things she had ever done, turning to face Ginny with her breasts still partly exposed. But she had wanted Ginny to see her, and this desire proved even stronger than her shame as she slowly pulled the simple cotton nightshirt down over her torso, taking care to graze the sides of her breasts lightly with her fingers as she did so, and letting her shirt catch on her still-stiff nipple.

Hermione couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think she imagined Ginny’s eyes lingering just above her midriff. As they lay in bed that night, Ginny placed a warm foot against Hermione’s leg with what felt like intention, and made Hermione's nerves flood upward into what felt like the deepest parts of her.

Later, she woke briefly to Ginny’s hand against the border where her knickers met her waist. Enthralled, Hermione laid as still as she could and focused on the sensation of Ginny’s fingers pressing warmly against the skin of her hip, fearing the sound of her own labored breathing as it cut across the stillness of the night.

When she awoke the next morning, Ginny’s hand was still there. It took everything in her not to roll her pelvis upward into the warmth of Ginny's calloused fingertips. She lay still with her eyes closed until Ginny began to stir, and Hermione felt the bittersweet release of pressure as Ginny’s fingers relinquished their grip on her hipbone at last. As Ginny opened her eyes, she found Hermione already making her hurried way towards the bathroom to 'wash up', and she wouldn't turn to face Ginny as she nodded distractedly in response to her 'good morning'.

* * *

It was in the midst of this poignant recollection that she heard a small knock, and Harry sidled into the dusty classroom. Hermione looked up, expecting to feel angry, but all she could muster was sadness. Harry's voice was small and apologetic as he approached her.

“Hermione, I’m sorry. I wasn’t planning to do it, I swear - it just, came over me. . . almost like being under the Imperius curse, really.”

“Ha!” Hermione couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at his words, so similar to her own feelings.

“I don't blame you for being angry with me,” Harry replied, crestfallen.

“No Harry, it’s the opposite, actually,” Hermione was relieved to feel her rational instincts still intact, “I laughed because I understand exactly how you feel.”

“Really? Oh. Well, that’s a relief then. I’m still really sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me. It’s not like Ginny and I are still-" she paused awkwardly, and tried again. "It’s not like either of you owes me anything. I mean after all I’m the one who. . .”

“R-right." Harry picked up where Hermione found herself unable to continue. "Why did you call it off, anyway, ‘Mione? It’s just that, last time we talked it sounded like you were going to- like you wanted to try to. . . y’know. And then you didn’t, and I can’t understand why.”

They looked hard at each other for a moment before Hermione replied halfheartedly, “How do you know it wasn’t Ginny who called it off? She could have just as easily decided she's had enough.”

Harry's tone was indiscernible, and his words slow and intentional. “Well, first off because I’ve seen the way she looks at you. She’d snog you in front of the Queen of England if you gave her the chance. And secondly because she told me that it was your choice to stop seeing her, and that you’ve been avoiding her ever since.”

“She told you all of that, did she?” Hermione’s tone betrayed a slight annoyance for the first time. “Sounds like you two have been having some lovely chats lately. I bet you’ve adored that, haven’t you?”

“Oh yeah, we have been spending a lot of time together,” said Harry, coloring slightly. “It’s amazing to be around the girl you love, having her cry to you all the time about the girl she loves. Feels fantastic - really, I can’t get enough.”

It was Hermione’s turn to blush, and her tone was conciliatory. “I’m sorry, Harry, that must be really hard for you. I didn’t mean to accuse you - it feels like my head’s not screwed on right anymore. And I know I have no right to be, but I’m so jealous of anyone who even gets to talk to her. The other day in Hogsmeade, Parvati loaned her a sickle and I found myself hoping she would trip over a loose cobblestone.”

“If that’s what Parvati gets for a sickle, I should probably take a hint from Moody and start using a hip flask for a couple of weeks, eh?,” Harry chuckled darkly. Reluctantly, Hermione did too.

“You laugh, but I feel like I’m turning into a monster! I don’t want to go around wishing ill on anybody, especially not for a silly reason like lending a sickle to a friend!”

“How about for snogging you ex-girl in front of your sitting room?" The sentiment rolled clumsily off Harry's tongue, and was received with similar reluctance by Hermione's ears. "But why don’t you just talk to her then, ‘Mione? You know she wants to talk to you.”

“There's no such thing as just talking to her, Harry, you know that as well as I do. If I talk to her then I’ll be close to her, and if I’m close to her, she’ll smile and make those eyes at me, and when she looks at me like that, I forget myself entirely. . . ” Hermione's cadence slowed to a crawl and her eyes glazed over, obvious signs that she was being lost, once again, to memory.

“But why not be with her then?” It was Harry’s turn to betray a slight impatience as he recalled her to the present. “I don’t understand, Hermione. She’s made it clear that she wants you, too - tonight has been a fairly painful reminder of that. . .” He paused self-consciously before continuing. “So what are you waiting for, exactly? If I could be with Ginny right now, I wouldn’t be sitting here cooped up in this dusty old classroom, at least not with anyone else! I s'pose I made that a little too obvious tonight. . .” He looked at her sheepishly, and they sighed in tandem.

“I can’t be with her Harry, even if other people don’t care. She’s like that music box we found at Grimmauld Place: she intoxicates me, and I could easily waste away under her influence. When I’m with her I stop caring about any of the things that make me 'myself'.” Hermione’s thoughts drifted out of the classroom once again, back to a brisk Autumn afternoon in October when she had made contact with this new part of herself for the first time.

* * *

A Wednesday in February 

They had been back in school for six weeks, and Hermione was having trouble maintaining her usual focus. What with classes resuming, Prefect duties increasing due to the unrest in the Wizarding world, more homework than ever as they began preparation for NEWTS, and the Quidditch season beginning, she had barely seen Ginny at all since they had arrived. This was normal, but the way Hermione felt about it was not.

She found herself thinking of Ginny constantly. She had begun to live for those chance encounters when they passed each other in the Hall, or shared space in the common room. Life had become waiting for those fleeting moments when Ginny smiled, or tucked her feet under Hermione’s thigh when they sat next to each other on the couch, or ‘accidentally’ brushed her ankle under the table at lunch.

One afternoon while she was studying in the library, Hermione felt a soft, warm pressure on her shoulders and was pleasantly surprised to see a tendril of trademark long red hair spilling down over her arm. A deep inhale brought with it scents of mahogany and jasmine, and she basked in what could only be the arrival of Ginny.

“ H‘lo Hermione! I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages!” Ginny’s forearms rested heavily on Hermione’s shoulders, and her words came from a place titillatingly near Hermione’s left ear. “I hope I’m not interrupting a work of superior genius - if so just shrug me off and I’ll wait until you’ve finished.”

Hermione had no intention of shrugging Ginny off, and was disappointed to feel her shift away of her own accord. But then Ginny plopped herself down backwards on the bench, sitting so close to Hermione that their legs touched from hip to mid-thigh, and Hermione had to shift her arm to avoid hitting Ginny’s, which was now resting beside her parchment.

Disinclined to speed Ginny’s departure, Hermione muttered something about completing her thought (although indeed she had just finished a rather simple sentence detailing the date of an obscure war between dwarf clans). She painstakingly transcribed a lengthy followup about the resulting treaty’s implications in her finest penmanship, while Ginny watched the tip of her quill trace out the letters.

“Maybe I should ask you for help with my handwriting, too - I’m sure Professor Flitwick would appreciate not having to magic my essays into legibility anymore. Snape gave me detention for it once, although it was just before a Quidditch match so it may not have been entirely about my chicken scratch . . . Wanker.”

“I’ll throw in a free lesson in syntax, as well then,” said Hermione’s mouth without Hermione’s consent, “When you ask for help with something ‘too’, it means that you’ve already asked for help with something else - which, at present, you have not.” Hermione’s mouth grinned while Hermione’s brain swore at it for being so verbose, so impertinent.

But Ginny’s mouth smiled too, and her eyes looked into Hermione’s like they had discovered something new there, and were searching for more signs of the same. “Well I’m glad you’re in a lecturing mood, because we’ve just been assigned McGonagall’s Principles of Transmogrification essay and, as usual, she cited yours as being one of the best she’s ever received - I was hoping to benefit from your wisdom and experience.”

“I see." Hermione's voice took on the same tone it so often addressed Ron and Harry with after they had procrastinated an assignment to the point of implausibility. "So you’re here to lessen your own workload by taking advantage of mine.” Hermione turned from her parchment to catch Ginny’s eye and give her a playful smile. “Yes all right, I’ll help you. But you’re not copying. It’s upstairs in the dormitory and anyway, McGonagall told me she made a copy for her archive.”

Ginny scoffed and pulled a face of mock injury. “Copy off yours? Wrong Weasley, Hermione. I found you in the library because - well first of all because you practically live here, I suspect you’ve got a cot hiding in a corner somewhere - and secondly because I thought you could point me towards your favorite books on the subject and then we could spend a few hours pouring over giant, dusty manuscripts together. It’s a favor for you, really,” Ginny finished with a devilish grin, and butterflies danced in Hermione’s stomach as Ginny arched her eyebrows in playful victory.

They were face to face, inches apart from one another now. Hermione felt herself drawn inescapably closer to Ginny, unable to look away. The smell of old books mingled with the light coming in from the embrasure which, reflected in Ginny’s eyes, turned her irises into liquid honey. Hermione was inebriated, she felt warm and airy like the little particles of dust that danced between them in the shaft of light. Her eyes moved away from Ginny’s towards a sudden movement in her lips, which were now contorted by the pressure of Ginny’s front tooth biting down slightly on one side. Full, pink, and coming closer to her own by the second, until…

“Tantalizing Transformations, perhaps? Or, Enchanting Elixirs of the Elevated Arts?” Ginny said in a low, conspiratorial voice. She was so close now that Hermione could taste Ginny’s breath when she spoke.

“W-what?” Hermione stammered slightly as she tried to shake the moment off.

“Some of the books McGonagall recommended, but I think they might be in the Restricted Section. Wait here, I’m going to try and scrap a pass off of Madam Pince. Wish me luck - Merlin knows I’ll need it. Unless you want to ask her for me?”

“I’ll wait here,” Hermione fumbled to recover her poise. “This is my second home, after all, which makes Madam Pince like an aunt to me. I couldn’t possibly deprive her of the chance to safeguard her books from riffraff like you.”

“I’ll be back then; anyway I love a challenge,” Ginny smirked and slid off the bench to make her way towards the pinch-nosed librarian.

Riffraff like you? Hermione sighed, and leaned over her History of Magic book. What had she thought was going to happen? Ginny was a girl, for Merlin’s sake! Surely she had no interest in going around kissing other girls. Although her eyes had lingered on Hermione’s figure for quite a long time on that last evening of summer vacation. . . but no, she must have been reading into it. Ginny was simply comparing her own lithe figure to Hermione’s slightly fuller one from a place of anatomical curiosity. It was only natural, platonic; human nature. Not only was Ginny a girl, she was the girl. Half the school wanted her and the other half still wanted to say hello to her in the hallway. Ginny could have her pick of the lot: a captain of the Quidditch team or a future Minister of Magic.

When Ginny fantasized about who she’d like to be snogging (that is, if she ever had to fantasize, instead of actually just snogging people), there was no chance that bookish Hermione, whom she was always teasing for her tepid sense of humor, could possibly make the list. The moment had come and gone like the shaft of light through the escarpment, now fallen into shadow as the sun moved West towards setting - a perfect metaphor for Hermione’s hope that Ginny might want her the same way that, she was just now realizing, Hermione _wanted_ Ginny.

Suddenly she was back, flashing a signed slip of parchment and a smirk at Hermione, and gesturing towards the dark shelves at the far end of the library. Hermione lifted herself off the table and tried to bully her face into wearing as neutral an expression as possible while she followed that shimmering sweep of red hair towards the velvet rope which separated the Restricted Section from the rest of the books.

“I can’t go in with you, the rope will only allow the person holding the slip to pass to the other side - another rule that didn’t exist before Harry came to this school, might I add,” she concluded in a most Hermione-ish manner.

Ginny smiled and replied by lifting the velvet rope. “After you m’lady, I told Madam Pince that I’d be much more effective in there with the benefit of your expertise.” Hermione raised both brows at Ginny before turning to look at Madam Pince, who would surely be watching the rope like a hawk.

As predicted, she found the librarian’s eyes fixed steadily upon the pair of them. Unlike she predicted, however, Madam Pince gave her a small nod of approbation. Even more surprisingly - although Hermione was half-sure she imagined it - she thought she saw the librarian lower one eyelid ever so briefly towards the place behind Hermione’s right shoulder, where Ginny stood.

“Did she just wink at you?" Hermione was relieved to find the familiar tone of indignation alive in her voice. "I’ve been nothing short of a perfect patron to this library, and Madame Pince has barely even smiled at me! Gods it must be nice to spend a day walking around in your robes,” Hermione muttered as she was ushered onto the other side of the rope. Her murmuring ceased when she felt Ginny’s warm hand pressing into the small of her back.

“You should try them on sometime then, if you like,” Ginny jibed. “Besides, I don’t know if stealing books from the restricted section to brew illegal potions in bathrooms counts as ‘perfect patronage’ - although I’m certainly not complaining, seeing as your nicking that book saved my life.”

Hermione chuckled at the recollection, and was grateful for a moment that she was fur-less once again. “Hardly - it was Harry who did that, just like he’s saved me half a dozen times. Although perhaps I wouldn’t be in danger quite so often if we spent a little less time together . . .” both girls laughed. Hermione glanced perfunctorily at Ginny’s list and began combing the shelves for the corresponding titles.

“It was you though, too, you know. Who saved me from the Chamber of Secrets. Harry told me he never would’ve worked out that Basilisk clue if you hadn’t’ve - literally - handed it to him. If it weren’t for you, he would’ve been too late. And we both know that wasn’t the first or the last time you’ve saved his arse. A lot of the people I care about are around today because of you, ‘Mione” Hermione flushed at the sound of the diminutive coming out of Ginny’s mouth. She was full of quiet pride: perhaps Ginny didn’t want her the same way, but at least she seemed to see her, and appreciate her for who she was. Although she bore it better than Ron did, Hermione also felt the occasional pangs of inconsequence that were the unavoidable downside of having a famous best friend.

Thinking of Harry made Hermione wonder unhappily whether Ginny was doing the same. She had a quiet, intimate look in her eyes, and Hermione wondered how she would bear it if Ginny confessed her love for Harry to her once again. She comforted herself with the reminder that Ginny had not mentioned Harry like that in quite a while - not since last year, even.

Smiling to herself at this thought, Hermione looked at Ginny’s list again. “Wait a moment: neither of these titles have anything to do with Transmogrification. Are these even books?”

I , Madam Pince, give Ginevra Weasley and Hermione Granger permission to enter the Restricted Section in pursuit of the following: 

\- Promising Passion & Rigorous Romance

\- Sapphic Secrecy away from the Stares of Simpletons

Ginny looked her dead in the eye. “I finished my Transmogrification essay last night, Hermione. I just wanted to get you in here so I could do this.” And with that Ginny closed the distance between them, taking Hermione’s face in her hands and kissing her fully, slowly, deeply on the mouth. Hermione unconsciously dropped the slip of parchment as she slid her arms firmly up the sides of Ginny’s waist and gripped at her ribcage, feeling astonished and heavy and heady as her nerves caught fire.

Quaffle-calloused hands clasped her jaw, and she pulled away to hold Ginny’s gaze for as long as she could stand it, until her breath was shallow and ragged and her whole body was alight. “Ginny, I-“ Hermione faltered, not knowing where she was going, except that she wanted to tell her everything: everything she had ever thought, or felt, or wanted. As usual, Ginny didn't miss a beat, and she picked up where Hermione dropped off. “I know. Me too. We can talk about it later.” And Ginny’s blazing eyes closed again as she kissed Hermione for a second, a third, a fourth, precluding a thousand more times.

* * *

“H- Hermione?” The sound of her own name startled her back into her present misery. She had been holding her own cheeks tenderly in the palms of her hands, and was horrified that she may have been puckering her lips, too. “Sorry, Harry; I just got caught up in my thoughts.” Furious, deep-red blush was quickly becoming her regular skin tone.

“Your thoughts, or your feelings?” Harry’s blush had a slightly pinker hue.

“My memories, actually.”

“Good memories then, if the look on your face has anything to say about it.”

They sat in silence for a minute, until Harry finally said, “Look, Hermione, I can’t sit here like this with you any more. I’m not sorry that I tried to kiss Ginny. All I want to do is kiss Ginny, and I don’t get to. She doesn't want me to. But at least I tried. Whereas you, you could have her right now if you wanted to, and instead you're sitting in here sniveling, feeling sorry for yourself about it.” His voice began to rise as he continued. “And why? Because you’re scared? All the things we’ve been through together, and you’re scared of this? If that’s true then maybe you’re not the smartest witch in our year, after all. If that’s true, then I think you might be the stupidest.” And he left the room, not angrily, but quickly and without looking her in the eye. 

As his words sank in, and she realized that not _one_ of her three best friends was speaking to her anymore, Hermione wondered exactly what hurt she was frightened of that would be more painful than this.


	8. 11:00 pm - Ginny

Ginny’s mind was reeling. Leave it to Harry to make a hard situation even harder. No, that isn’t fair, that voice like Hermione’s sounded in her head again. He likes you, and you pushed him into showing you that he does. At least he wanted you to know, and didn’t he care who saw it. You could do a lot worse than Harry Potter. But even as she thought it, she remembered what it felt like to kiss Harry. Warm, easy, mundane. Safe. Like she’d never be left terrified, or breathless or electrified; or wanting more. 

And then there was Hermione. Hermione, whose kiss lit her insides on fire. Hermione, whose glance burned through all of Ginny’s pomp and confidence to the little redheaded girl beneath. The youngest sister of six brothers, who had never had a chance to understand her own femininity, who still sometimes woke in a cold sweat to dreams of dying in a dark and clammy chamber buried miles beneath the school. Who lived for the moments that they spent together. Hermione made her feel stupid and brave and reckless and safe; and real. 

Hermione who didn’t want to look at her right now, much less speak to her. Damn it. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep for ages. Her usual solution was to envision things that she and Hermione had, or might have done to one another in those moments they found themselves alone, and mimick the physical parts for herself until her satisfaction gave way to sleep.  
But now it would hurt too badly, wouldn’t it? Hermione didn’t want her anymore - maybe she never really had - and Ginny would be violating her wishes to keep thinking along those lascivious lines…

Or would she? Hermione had wanted it, just as badly as Ginny had. There had been times when Ginny was taken aback by how aggressively Hermione had come onto her when they were sure of having some time without interruption. Like that night in the Transfiguration classroom, she thought with a bittersweet little shudder of pleasure. Hermione had come to find Ginny finishing up her detention, after having hexed Blaise Zabini for an off-color comment about half-bloods. Ginny had been dusting off McGonagall’s desk when out of nowhere she felt soft hands grip her waist and warm, voluptuous thighs press up against her own. Before she knew what was happening, Ginny's skirt was at her midriff and she had one hand clamped around the edge of the desk, and the other reaching back around Hermione’s neck for support while the older girl slid two fingers in and out of her over and over again without any buildup or pretense whatsoever. Which had been no problem for Ginny, she thought wryly; she was always wet the second Hermione laid a hand on her. 

Ginny had come so hard that she couldn't hold herself up, and collapsed panting onto the desk. Hermione rolled Ginny onto her back and leaned over her so they were face to face. Then she had slowly, intentionally pulled her soaking fingers away from Ginny's pussy and up to her own mouth where she laid them heavily on her tongue, sliding them first deeper, then shallower, then deeper into her throat again. She never stopped making eye contact with Ginny, into whose memory this image would remain scorched like lightning into the walls of her mind where they overlapped with her desire. Hermione's mouth was flushed and pink, and her eyes steely like when they were preparing for an exam, except with lids as heavy as lead. Her breathing was irregular and laborious, like all her focus had shifted away from that indispensable endeavor towards something even more essential.

Ginny's breath hitched at the recollection, and her fingers moved unconsciously down her torso until they reached the thin cotton barrier which was, as predicted, quickly dampening. It was not hard to pretend that Hermione's mouth, rather than her own wetness, was drenching her knickers. Like that time they had stolen away to an empty greenhouse between lessons, and Ginny had almost killed them both by grabbing onto a Venomous Tentacula for support as Hermione was bringing her to completion on the scrubbed wooden bench. In a strangely erotic turn of events, the Tentacula had responded by trying to strangle Ginny with one of its vines, resulting in an incredible if not slightly off-putting orgasm. The offending arm of the vine was severed quickly afterwards by Hermione, who looked up from her attentions to find Ginny in the throes of something other than passion. They had laughed themselves to tears at this strange sequence of events, and Ginny had walked away thinking that perhaps even unpleasant things could be rendered enjoyable if they were done alongside Hermione.

These memories belonged to Ginny just as much as they did to Hermione, she reminded herself, and they were and would always be real. Even if Hermione didn’t want her now, she had wanted her; that part was true. Nothing could take those moments away from Ginny, even if there wouldn’t (she tried not to fixate on this part) be any more of them.

Then there was that time that they had forgotten to put a silencing charm around Hermione’s four-poster before climbing into bed. The next morning Ginny awoke to find Hermione smiling mischievously between her legs as her fingers and tongue danced around the creases between Ginny's thighs and her center. Fifteen minutes later Ginny was howling like a werewolf, and five minutes after that she was hiding as effectively as she could manage beneath the bedsheets while Hermione tried to convince Parvati and Lavender that she’d seen a 'gentleman caller' sneaking out of a neighboring bunk just as they were pulling their curtains back in drowsy-eyed, girlish curiosity. 

Fortunately (at least as far as Hermione was concerned), the other Gryffindor girls didn't imagine her capable of such salaciousness, and turned their interrogations quickly towards the rest of the dorm while Hermione slipped a quick disillusionment charm over Ginny so she could make her escape. For her part, Ginny would have loved nothing more than to have rolled casually out from Hermione's bed and greeted her wide-eyed dormmates with a cheery 'good morning, all', and then to have kissed Hermione hard on the mouth, before sidling out past the incredulous faces and striding boldly back to her own dorm room.

But then she had always known, even as they lay giggling and holding each other tightly in the darkness, that Hermione did not want their newfound intimacy to be seen in the light of day. Ginny’s hand lost confidence in its ministrations as sadness began to assert itself over her other feelings once again. Why did it matter if there was one girl involved in snogging or two? As far as Ginny was concerned, the smooth skin and lack of facial hair made the latter preferable. But clearly Hermione did not feel the same - at least not in theory, because she had certainly been enthusiastic in its practice, Ginny thought with a small twinge of annoyance.

A soft mew and a heavy thud on the bed next to her announced Crookshanks’ arrival, and Ginny felt a single tear make its way down her cheek as she reached over to drape the cat across her chest like a heating blanket. He settled into her and purred as she stroked his thick, fluffy coat. “At least you'll share a bed with me, Crookshanks,” Ginny spoke softly to the cat. “You know you’ll always find affection here when you want it. But I hope you’re giving your love to Hermione, too,” she added sincerely. “If she won’t have it from me any longer, she certainly deserves to have it from someone. And if I’m being honest, I’d rather it be from you than from any other bloke.”

She drifted off slowly, feeling the cat’s warm, steady breathing against her ribcage, and trying not to remember the simple bliss of a larger, less furry body sleeping soundly beside her own.


	9. 9:00 am - Ginny

Ginny’s bleary eye had to look twice at the clock by her bedside to confirm: she had slept through breakfast. Great. Another terrible day in a series of terrible days would start with her missing her favorite meal, again. 

Had no one thought to wake her? So what if she growled like a lion yesterday when one of her dorm mates had gently tugged her curtains back, and suggested that she not miss Potions after skiving off History of Magic the previous day? The curtains had been easy enough to magic back into place after Ginny had ripped them unceremoniously shut, and Gryffindors were supposed to be plucky, dammit! 

This unpleasant line of thought led her to remember another Gryffindor she knew who was coming off as less than lionhearted at the moment. What was that, ten seconds? Ten seconds of being awake without thinking about her? Well, better than yesterday, anyhow. 

As she was scowling at her drapings, they drew back of their own accord to reveal long silvery blonde hair holding a large plate of eggs, beans and toast, and a goblet full of pumpkin juice. “Good morning Ginny - or is that insensitive of me to say? Perhaps you would prefer to just call it ‘a morning’. Morning Ginny.”

“Luna.” Ginny could have kissed her - not the way she’d like to kiss Hermione, but still fully on the mouth. Instead she sat up, ran a hand through her disheveled hair, and drank deeply from the goblet which Luna proffered while scooting over to make room on her mattress. 

“I thought that you might like something to eat. I know how fond you are of breakfast, and it seems a shame to miss your favorite meal - especially as you already seem to be missing enough at the moment.”

“Thanks,” Ginny said, wiping juice from her lips with the back of her arm. Here was someone who wasn’t scared of what other people thought. One of the bravest people Ginny had ever known! Although she did seem lonely at times. Maybe that was the price that Hermione was not willing to pay, not even for what they had. Then, slowly remembering that Luna was not a Gryffindor at all, she inquired, “Hang on a moment - Luna, how did you get in here?”

“Well, I was planning to wait in the corridor for a familiar Gryffindor to ask whether they might let me in for a moment in the service of a friend, but while I was waiting I introduced myself to your portrait guardian. I asked her whether she wouldn’t prefer to be called something else, like the Elegant Lady, or the Aria Singer, and she swung open to let me in.”  
And then, as an afterthought, “D’you know, I think she _would_ like to be called by a different name. It’s funny how people choose just one thing to describe others, when really everyone is full of so many different things. It doesn’t seem possible that any one word could describe a whole person, at least not properly.” Ginny wasn’t sure if it was her own state of mind, but she felt like Luna was trying to say more than she was letting on. “Except, perhaps, for a name; I suppose that’s why we have them. I wonder what your Portrait Lady’s is,” Luna asked of the dormitory at large, deserted as it was but for the two of them. 

Luna sat down beside Ginny on the bed and passed her the plate of food. Ginny took it readily, and Luna revealed a fork that she had been keeping tucked behind her left ear. 

“It’s Hermione you miss, isn’t it?” Luna said some moments later. Ginny stopped mid-bite to gape at her. “I guessed it was her because you usually go out of your way to spend time with one another, except for the past 8 days - which is also when you started skipping breakfast.” Ginny stared in amazement. Luna gazed back at her unflinchingly. 

Bollocks. Maybe people did know afterall, or at least they were starting to notice. Exactly what Ginny had promised Hermione would not happen (but also, exactly what she _did_ want to happen). “But I haven’t told anyone, aside from Harry! Luna, does everybody know? 

“That you love each other? No, I don’t think so - at least no one’s ever asked me about it, and people tend to ask me a lot of questions about you.” Ginny was taken aback by this strange insight into Luna’s side of their friendship. “It is fairly obvious though. Your auras become more vibrant when you get close to one another, and if you hear her name, or pass her in the hallway, you smile about everything for the next hour or so. It’s a wonderful sort of magic, really - a kind I’ve never seen before. Except for the last eight days, when you haven’t been around each other at all.”

Ginny wondered if Luna really could see people’s energies, like how people who had seen death could also see thestrals. She certainly seemed to understand something about the lot of them that Ginny herself couldn’t make heads or tails of. Whatever it was, she felt good talking to Luna about vulnerable things. 

“She said she doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

“Well that’s odd, as she looks for you every morning at breakfast. And sometimes I see her watching the path to the Quidditch pitch just before Gryffindor practice starts. Why would a person go out of their way to look for someone they didn’t want to see?” Luna’s candor was, as always, apparent, and it led Ginny to hope as she hadn’t allowed herself to do for a week. 

“What do I do now, Luna?”

“Well I suppose that depends on what you want to happen.”

“I want, _Hermione_.” The words left her lips slowly at first, but gathered in speed as she continued. “I want to be with Hermione, and I want everyone to know it. I want to snog her on the Grand Staircase, and hold her hand in the corridors. I want to be called ‘Hermione’s girlfriend’. And I want her to want all of that the same way that I do.” Here, she paused.  
“But that’s not fair, is it? We can’t help _who_ we want, so why would we be able to help _what_ we want? And what Hermione wants is to stay out of people’s gossip. I can hardly blame her for that. she already deals with more than enough as it is.” Ginny exhaled a long breath, and felt herself settling into a new sense of resolve. 

She hadn’t been fair. Hermione didn’t want, couldn’t stand any more speculations or judgements about the particulars of her life. She hadn’t asked to be best friends with a celebrity, and while Ron seemed to bask in the reflective glow of Harry’s popularity (when he wasn’t sulking in its shadow), Hermione had always shied away from it, like a flower that wilts with too much sunlight. 

And now Ginny wanted her to stand on the ramparts and declare yet another reason for people to talk about her, to form opinions about parts of her life which they didn’t know or care about, but which would affect a sensitive person like Hermione deeply and for a long time. Of course Hermione didn’t want that, no matter what she was trading it in for.

Ginny had almost completely forgotten that Luna was sitting beside her, until she heard her calm, even tone sound into the silence. “I think Hermione’s head has had a lot more practice than Hermione’s heart, so it probably works things out a bit more quickly. But I suspect that her heart will make her final decision, even if her head made the first one.”

They sat in silence together, Ginny reflecting on Luna’s comment, and her uncanny awareness of people’s feelings, and the strange but invaluable nature of her friendship. Eventually Luna asked, in a tone of perfect indifference which would have rattled Harry, or Dean, or any of the other Quidditch-crazy boys she knew to their core, whether Ginny was still planning to play in the Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw match later that day, for which Luna would again be commentating.

Ginny was shell-shocked. She had completely forgotten about the Quidditch match. Looking back, there had been hazy moments throughout the week which should have reminded her that the final game of the season was forthcoming. Walking around in the stormcloud of her grief, however, they had all bounced off of her awareness without leaving any lasting impression. 

Ginny could think of no more perfect distraction for her agonized mind than the Quidditch pitch to burn off some of her anxious energy. She hoped the match wouldn’t extend past lunch, where she planned to make up for a week of lost breakfasts by eating her weight in boiled potatoes. Ginny dressed haphazardly and the two girls made their way through the common room and towards the pitch. As they passed the portrait Luna turned to say goodbye to the Fat Lady who bid her adieu with the utmost courtesy, and hinted that she was free to visit Gryffindor tower any time.


	10. 7:00 am - Hermione

Hermione woke up feeling like she hadn’t slept at all the night before. Her face was puffy and her eyes were swollen shut as she drew back the curtains of her bed. Had it always been so difficult to fall asleep alone? Not that she and Ginny had spent every night together, but the possibility of Ginny was always there, and more often than not she would lie quietly awake and remember their last long encounter, their clandestine ‘goodnights’ away from the unsuspecting eyes of their fellow Gryffindors . . . 

And those precious, tremendous moments when the closed curtains of Hermione’s four-poster would sway, and suddenly she was engulfed in warm hands and soft lips and long, scintillating strands of hair. Often they would simply fall asleep together, and on those nights Hermione could feel her breath fill up her entire body and then leave, taking with it all the stress and anxiety she had been holding onto: worry about Ginny, about school, about Voldemort (it was still safe to think the name, after all), and about Harry. Time and sleep did not matter when Ginny curled herself against Hermione like a cat and her breath became steady and slow, and Hermione would wake refreshed the next morning from one of the best night’s sleep she’d ever had. 

Now Hermione’s only bedfellow was her actual cat, Crookshanks, and even he seemed to miss Ginny. Some nights he didn’t show up at all, and on those nights especially, Hermione knew that she would wake up bleary-eyed and mournful the following morning. Although that was every morning lately, she thought ruefully. 

She dressed and made her way absentmindedly down the staircase to the common room. Ginny hadn’t been at breakfast all week, something which was as alarming to Hermione as it was disappointing: breakfast was Ginny’s favorite meal. She hoped that someone had thought to bring her some before her first lessons- if she was even making it to her lessons. . . 

Hermione reflected guiltily that she might be causing Ginny academic distress, as well as the emotional kind. As she reached the bottom of the stairs she was jolted back to the present by the sight of Ron, leaning against the wall and looking shiftily in her direction in a way that told her he had been waiting for her.

“Oh, er, morning Hermione,” and then in a fast, low mumble that she could barely make out, “can I talk to you for a second?”

In shock, Hermione allowed herself to be led out of the common room and towards the same dusty classroom that she had ran into the night before. Her exhaustion guarded her from overthinking: she had no idea what Ron might have in store for her, and she found she didn’t care at all. Not right now. 

They stood in awkward silence for a while in the doorway, not willing to find themselves completely alone together, yet neither wanting to be seen. Ron leaned back against the doorframe and said, “Listen Hermione, about the other night. About what I- I think I may’ve come off a bit . . . I didn’t mean it,” he said to the floor, while his right hand rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

As if they had been hiding just around the corner, tears burst forth from Hermione’s eyes and she let out a sudden sob, falling forward into the front of Ron’s robes. Alarmed, he steadied her and allowed her to rest her forehead against his chest while his hands fumbled to find a place that was supportive, but not too intimate, near the middle of her back. She felt the trepidation in his movements and let out a small laugh amidst her tears. 

“You don’t hate me then, Ron? I really thought you might, this time. I honestly didn’t know if we were going to get past this.” Hermione’s sobs gradually turned to sniffles and she wiped her face lightly with the side of Ron’s robes. 

“No! I don't hate you Hermione! I had just gone to the loo to- well, you know, a man’s business. . . And then I saw- well, I didn’t expect to find anyone in there, much less- And then you were. . . with Ginny- with my sister! ” He repeated the words ‘my sister’ once again, not knowing which to emphasize. He fell into silence and looked forlornly at Hermione, and his hand found the back of his neck again. “It just, caught me off-guard, you know?" 

" _Disgusting_ , was the word you used, " Hermione reflected in a small, but steady voice. 

"I didn't mean it like that! I didn't know what I was saying! I just never thought that you- I didn’t know you liked- didn’t know you fancied. . .” here the heat began to rise in Ron’s face, and he turned quickly from pale to beet-red before stammering on, “Y’know, I could. . . If that's what you , I mean _we_ could . . . Maybe if we just started off with a bit of snogging first, but I could- I mean I _would_. . .”

And then she kissed him. She kissed him hard, planting her hands on the back of his neck, gripping his hair with her fingers and drawing his lower lip into her tear-salted mouth. She kissed him with all the pain and longing she had felt for the past week, with all the intensity that she had missed in her time spent with Ginny. She kissed him because Harry had kissed Ginny and she had let him. They both had. When she finally pulled away, fresh, silent tears were falling, and she let out a deep, shuddering breath. 

“That wasn’t half-bad, was it?” Ron half-whispered, cheeks still tomato-red and looking somewhat pleased, despite the circumstance. 

Hermione sighed again and peered up through wet lashes to look him in the eye. “I’m so sorry Ron. I shouldn’t have done that. I just had to try. But I. . .” Ron’s face took on a hangdog expression, and he squinted as if to see her reaction less clearly. “Oh, but I _can’t_ be a . . . when I’m with her I just- but I _just_ can’t be a . . . It really wasn’t a _terrible_ kiss; was it?”

“Nah, not terrible. Bit soggy, perhaps." Hermione chuckled and slipped him a small, appreciative smile, so he went on. "Harry’s first kiss with Cho was a bit soggy as well. I s’pose it’s like a rite of passage . . ." For the third time Ron’s hand found the back of his neck, rubbing ever more vigorously at the muscles on his hairline. It stopped suddenly as he replied, “Well, if that’s it then, then that’s that I s’pose.”

“What do you mean?” She said tentatively, not daring to hope that she had interpreted this vague intimation correctly.

“Well you’ve got to go for it, haven’t you?” He said with some small frustration, as if repeating himself for the umpteenth time. “You’re miserable lately, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ginny so unhappy - not even when she was seven and Fred and George threw her stuffed dragon into the pond by our house. She cried for ages about it, even after mum fished it out and dried it off with her wand. Not that I’ve been much help lately . . .” he finished self-consciously.

Ron’s neck was threatening to rub right off where his hand was kneading into it, so Hermione tugged it gently away and took it in her own. “Do you mean it, Ron? You really don’t mind if I- if Ginny and I . . .?” She found she was unequal to finishing her sentence, and settled for staring sheepishly at Ron’s left eyebrow, which was still half missing from his botched disapparation exam.

“It’s not about me, anyhow, is it?” He said with a tinge of vexation, which may have had something to do with his eyebrow as well as his heart. “Hermione, if you want her, and she wants you, then why in the name of Merlin’s saggy left nut wouldn’t you be together? Except- “ and here, his tone deepened and he looked down at her quite seriously, “as her older brother, if you run around on her, you’ll have me to answer to. If you break her heart, I’ll-“ Hermione put her hands on his cheeks and looked him straight in the eyes, and he softened at her touch. “You’ll have nothing to worry about.” She tried to keep her voice steady as the tears started welling up for the third time. And all before breakfast! she thought exasperatedly.

* * *

Harry was serving another of his Saturday detentions with Snape (the reason for Ginny’s new position as Seeker, she thought somewhat guiltily), so she and Ron walked alone together down to the Great Hall, and this most welcome return to normalcy bolstered her mood even further. 

“Ron?” She said tentatively as they began to move back past the portrait hole and down towards the Great Hall, “don’t take this the wrong way, but I was expecting, well- I wasn't expecting you to be so ok with all of this. . . at least not so quickly! Last fall you didn't speak to me for two weeks just because Ginny mentioned my having kissed Victor, two years ago,” and then, under her breath, "a bit ironic, given the circumstances." 

At first Ron feigned offense, but quickly admitted to having spoken at length with Harry, as well as Fred and George, who had been hanging around all week - supposedly to support the Gryffindors before their final match, but Hermione was happy to suspect that they were being especially supportive of one Gryffindor girl in particular. 

"They helped me realize that it's not your fault, really, it's just the nature of attraction." Hermione noted the familiar tone of condescension in Ron's voice, and chose to rebuke him only with a simpering smile in honor of their newly reinstated friendship. She was somewhat mollified, therefore, to hear that Fred and George had also threatened to 'help remind him not to be a prick', if he somehow lost track of his enlightened new perspective.

“Anyway it’s not _so_ unusual. Mom’s got a cousin who lives with another lady, and Charlie’s roommate, Viv, is always bringing different girls home. Mom doesn’t like him talking about it too much, but I think that has more to do with how _many_ girls there are, rather than the fact that they’re _girls_. . .” He threw an arm over Hermione’s shoulder and led her towards the dining hall. “She’ll have you back, ‘Mione. I’ve known Ginny her whole life, and when she wants something, she always gets it. Bit infuriating, really. I told my parents a hundred times that six was a perfectly good number of children to stop at, but no, they wanted a _girl_. Joke’s on them now, isn't it, as they still won’t have any sons-in-law.”

Hermione let Ron's voice fade into the background as she thought about what she would say to Ginny when she saw her - finally, saw her - again. What should she do? Get her alone somewhere, certainly, and then just. . . well, she’d worry about that part when she came to it. First she had to find her. She decided to wait at the bottom of the Grand Staircase, as Ginny was sure to be swarmed by well-wishers the moment she sat down at the Gryffindor table. 

Hermione secretly hoped that their conversation would put Ginny in such a good mood as to fly exceptionally well, and she was looking forward to watching the match with unusual excitement. Perhaps she would even be watching her girlfriend play Seeker for Gryffindor. No, she wouldn’t get her hopes up that high, she told herself (although she couldn't help imagining wrapping up in Ginny’s quidditch robes for the long, chilly walk back to the castle if the game lasted until evening). 

Ron loitered gallantly alongside her for a minute or two as she lingered by the balustrade, enjoying the flood of support coming from students entering and exiting the Great Hall. But when he spotted Urquhart, the Slytherin captain, coming up from the dungeons, he remembered his urgent need to gather strength vis-a-vis a heaping plate of streaky bacon. No sooner had he disappeared into breakfast then another shock of red hair moved into Hermione’s line of sight. 

“Ginny!" Hermione reached out to catch Ginny by the wrist. "I’ve been waiting for you,” Hermione smiled at her own words, which held so many meanings for her. The resulting flood of emotion made her bashful, and she continued in a strangely formal manner, “I know you need to eat before your game, but could I speak with you in the courtyard for a moment?” The butterflies in Hermione’s stomach were now fluttering up into her chest. Her eyes fell on Ginny’s lips, and she was so enchanted by the different shapes they formed as they moved that it took her several moments to register their reply.  


“Not now, Hermione. I think I know what you’re going to say, but it'll have to wait. I need to concentrate on the match and I don't think I'll be able to if we keep talking.” In her surprise, Hermione was unable to utter more than a deflated “Oh! All right, then." Ginny gently extracted her wrist from Hermione's fingers and gave her hand a final squeeze. 

"Better let go now, yeah?" 

After one last, lingering look, she turned her back on Hermione and walked out onto the grounds in a way that made them both feel, for a split second, like they might never see each other again.

* * *

For the first time in her life, Hermione found herself fussing about Quidditch. Was it possible that Ginny wouldn’t play at all today? No, she'd never leave her fellow Gryffindors stranded like that, not after all they had been through this season what with Cormac, Ron (she acceded guiltily), and now losing Harry in the final match. Even if she wasn't able to explain herself before the game, Hermione could at least be certain of more time spent near Ginny as long as she followed the river of cloaks and colored scarves down to the Quidditch Pitch. 

Regardless of the strange and disappointing confrontation they had just had, Hermione was set in her resolve. Amongst the cheering crowds, she could sit quietly and contemplate her next move. And besides, the match would provide a perfectly viable reason to appreciate the visual charms of Ginny's capable figure without attracting any undue attention.


	11. 11:00 am Saturday - The Match

Ginny moved distractedly down towards the Quidditch pitch, her robes billowing and her mind reeling. What had Hermione wanted to say to her? Probably she wanted to softly deal the final blow. But what if it had been something else? Damn and double damn. Maybe she had wanted to talk about them - maybe she had wanted reassuring, or for Ginny to confirm that she still had feelings for Hermione, and instead she had been embarrassed and probably reminded of exactly why it wasn't worth it to be with her fiery, feminine self. Triple damn.

She found Hermione in the stands almost immediately after kick-off, and couldn’t help but glancing her direction every minute or so. Alarmingly, each time she sought out that bushy brown hair she found deep, thoughtful eyes staring steadily back at her. Focus, focus. Gryffindor was up by 60 points at the moment; not enough to win the cup if she found the snitch before Cho. She had to be vigilant. She had to cinch the victory for her team. And, a small voice in the back of her head whispered, perhaps Hermione would be more likely to forgive her chilly demeanor if she was the reason Gryffindor won the House Cup, or at least had a reason to celebrate. 

Hermione doesn't care about Quidditch, she reprimanded herself. But still, a common room full of happy Gryffindors certainly couldn't hurt her chances, and after all, Hermione _had_ come to watch the game, and even showed a genuine interest in the Quidditch finale. . . always full of surprises. That was one of the things Ginny liked so much about her. As inflexible and traditional as she came off, you never knew what she was going to say or do. For instance, Ginny could've never imagined a world where Hermione made the first move, but that was exactly what had happened that night - the night that had changed everything for her.

. . .  
That First Night  
. . .

It had been weeks since that day in the library. Everything was the same, and everything was different. Ginny was still going to classes, practicing Quidditch, and exchanging friendly greetings with Hermione across the Gryffindor table. Ginny was beginning to wonder if the whole thing had been a dream. The feeling of plush, flushed lips, the taste of saliva that set butterflies winging around the pit of her stomach and weighted her eyelids down, the irresistible pull towards gasping breath and fervid, expressive eyes and the tip of tentative tongues began to feel less like memory and more like fantasy with every moment that passed between now and exquisite 'then'. 

What was more, she suspected that Hermione was avoiding her. Not in an angry or obvious way, but subtly, which was almost worse. Hermione would greet Ginny as cheerfully as the boys, but always have to rush away. At meals, she was constantly behind a book or an issue of the Daily Prophet. When Ginny approached her in the common room she would always ask if Ginny needed something, without pulling her eyes away from the parchment she was inevitably pouring over. Ginny quickly determined that if she wanted something to happen, she was going to have to make it happen herself. She resolved to find Hermione in a place where she couldn't be distracted away from telling Ginny how she felt, and what she had been thinking of since that day in the library. 

Fortunately, Ron and Harry's academic dependence on Hermione meant that they were both fairly well-informed of her Prefect duty schedule. Tonight Hermione would be patrolling the Seventh floor corridors, necessarily alone and - even more atypically - without anything to read or write. After dinner Ginny set herself up in one of the armchairs in the Common Room to peruse Quintessential Magic: an Introduction to Charms, 2nd Edition and wait for the shuffle of parchment that signified Hermione was getting ready to move. 

Ginny's eyes washed over the words of the text:

"Casting a spell is, aside from the required gestures, a mental effort. The caster must precisely speak the incantation, focus the initial flow of magic, and of course exert enough pressure, or willpower, to compel a target to act in a way it wouldn’t otherwise."

Ginny was going to compel Hermione to be honest with her tonight, whether she wanted to or not. 

"To practice willpower without a wand, find something in the room to focus on."

Hermione's hair curled so nicely around her cheeks when she was bent over a piece of parchment. Ginny fondly recalled what it was like to tangle her fingers in those busy brown curls. She could feel her temperature rising in her cheeks and forced her eyes back onto the page.

"Do not let stray thoughts enter your mind, and if they do, dismiss them as quickly as possible. You'll find that this is a somewhat difficult activity at first." 

Hermione had a tendency to chew on her bottom lip when she was searching for the next word to write, Ginny noted for the umpteenth time. Absentmindedly, Ginny raised her own quill and began running the feather-tip gently across the crease of her mouth. She was getting distracted - or was she? What she wanted most was to bring Hermione's lips closer to hers, and she was concentrating on them with all her energy. She was going to ace her next Charms practical.

"It's also important to separate the idea of focus from the idea of willpower. Focus is one's ability to pinpoint what they want to affect . . ."

Ginny wanted Hermione to bite her lip like that. She wanted to run her own feather-light fingertips across Hermione's mouth . . . was she getting up? No, just readjusting. Every little movement of her figure made Ginny's jaw drop. How did anybody get any work done around her? No wonder her brother and Harry were poorer students than she; it wasn't their fault, really.

"As a general rule, concentration is required when ALL THREE of the following criteria have been met:

"The spell’s magic is sustained beyond the initial casting; AND"

Ginny had been under Hermione's spell since she saw her getting dressed last summer - or was it before that? She could no longer remember life before the gravity of her attraction

"The caster or the caster’s wand is NOT touching the target;"

She hadn't touched so much as Hermione's robes since they'd left the library together that afternoon - well, that wasn't strictly true: Ginny had been finding every excuse to brush bump, lean on, or otherwise make contact with Hermione whenever the shadow of an opportunity presented itself. . . but she wanted it to be reciprocal, and with purpose.

AND The spell can be ended at any time without a counter-charm." 

Ginny highly doubted that. Even with a counter-charm, she couldn't forget the wonder that was Hermione, wandering through her thoughts at all times of day and night. And, if she was perfectly honest with herself, she wouldn't want to forget. The rush, the warmth, the tingling sensation in her stomach when she saw or even just remembered Hermione was her favorite part of the day, every day. 

Finally, the familiar shuffling of papers roused Ginny from her revelry. She waited approximately 7 seconds after Hermione had disappeared through the portrait hole before strolling boldly over to it (as a fifth year, she was technically no longer allowed out of the common room) and stepping out without a backward glance. She moved quietly through the castle, braced to step behind a statue or a tapestry if she heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

This night was too important to spend being berated for breaking curfew, her gut whispered to her as she walked. It was now or never: after tonight she would know whether their time in the library was a one-shot, or if Hermione was as eager as she was to repeat the performance and reinforce the feelings that had been coursing through Ginny since their last summer at the Burrow together. 

Ginny had been walking for almost an hour when she spotted the shadow of robes turning towards her from around the far corner. Leaning against a nearby wall, Ginny crossed her arms and tried to look extremely casual as the small shape made its way closer. She knew right away that it was Hermione. Something in her gait, her posture, the sound of her footsteps approaching - not to mention the sharp gasp and the resulting hiss of 'Ginevra Weasley, what on earth are you doing in the corridors at this hour?! You startled me, I almost disarmed you."

Hearing the use of her full name made something in Ginny's chest rise. Hermione was the only person on Earth aside from Ginny's mother who ever called her 'Ginevra'. When her mother said it, it was a sure sign of bad tidings. When Hermione said it, however exasperated her tone, it sounded like music to Ginny's ears; like a promise of things to come. Smiling, she straightened herself up off the wall and said, 

"Oh hello there, Hermione. It's a bit late for a stroll isn't it? Or were you hoping to run into somebody?" 

"I'm a Prefect! It's my job to patrol the corridors after dark. You, on the other hand - It's after curfew! I'm supposed to deduct an automatic five points from Gryffindor for catching you out this late! What are you doing out here anyway? Or perhaps *you* were hoping to run into somebody." She uttered this last part towards the floor.

"Perhaps I was," Ginny grinned at her own private joke. "Or perhaps I just stepped out to get a better view of the full moon." She gestured her head out the window and towards the sky where luckily, the moon did look rather full.

"It's a waxing gibbous tonight - it's not technically full until tomorrow at 4 am." Hermione drew closer to her in order to get a better view from the window, and Ginny decided to press what felt like an advantage.

"Oh, is it? I s'pose I'll just have to come back tomorrow night as well, then." The desired effect of her words was immediate, as Hermione turned to face her in indignation. Her cheeks were red enough even to be distinguishable in the muted light of the moon streaming in through the glass. 

"You can't come back out here tomorrow night! It's another ten points for a second offense - you'll have forced me to take 15 points from Gryffindor," here, she paused briefly, but then another thought alighted in her eyes and she barreled onward, "And then, when people see the hourglass the next morning who do you think they'll whinge about? Not you, the rule breaker, but me, the Prefect on duty that night," She finished with a sigh of frustration, and Ginny was so endeared that she could have kissed her - so she tried to.

Several things happened at once. Ginny reached out to pull Hermione towards her. Hermione's face contorted with indignance. There was a sudden movement on Ginny's right side, and suddenly her hands stopped moving of their own accord. It was as if an invisible barrier had sprung up between the two girls, keeping Ginny's hands a good six inches away from any part of Hermione. 

"Don't you dare! Standing there, breaking school rules with impunity - and in front of a Prefect, might I add - You're perfectly convinced that you're welcome to do whatever you please, aren't you? Just as you go around snogging whoever you please, whenever you like!"

"Isn't that the point of snogging, to do it when and with whomever you feel like?" The words came out before Ginny could consider them. 

"Oh, fine! Fine. Yes, Yes! You can go about snogging anyone you want; but only if they care to snog you back! Which I don't! And anyhow, haven't you snuck out here to meet with Dean? I know it's not the first time."

The spell was stronger than Ginny's ability to counter it. She felt her arms being forced back against the wall as Hermione rounded in towards her. 

Dean. Of course it was about Dean! How could Ginny not have realized? The truth was, she had been oblivious to 'Dean' since the day she had kissed Hermione. She *had* snogged him a bit since then, but it hadn't felt like anything. If was as if her body and her spirit had detached from one another completely, and she could feel her body going through the motions of having a boyfriend while in her mind she was only, and had always been, Hermione's. Her heart lived on another plane of existence entirely - one where Dean was just a good, affectionate friend of hers, and she and Hermione relived their kiss in the library a thousand different ways. 

"You're not denying it, I see. Well I'll tell you something then, Ginny Weasley. Just because you go around snogging half the school doesn't mean that I can, or even want to be a part of it. Maybe I do- did! want to kiss you, but not if it's something you play at like it's tennis." 

"Tennis?"

"Yes, it's like- oh never mind tennis, like Wizard's chess then! or exploding snap, or any other game that you enjoy at parties but would never go out of you way to play; certainly not exclusively. . ." And then, to herself, "Wizardborns, I ask you." 

Then Hermione's voice broke, and a little piece of Ginny's heart along with it. "I had thought that, perhaps your following me into the library that day meant that you wanted to- that you felt what I had been- well, whatever I thought was obviously Not the case, as you were back to snogging Dean before the ink had dried on the parchment, as they say."

A single tear fell slowly across Hermione's cheek and she looked Ginny dead in the eyes with an expression of mingled hurt and frustration. Ginny was torn between grief at having caused Hermione pain in so obvious and thoughtless a manner, and delight at her assertion that 'the ink on the parchment' was a commonly-used expression in a secondary school. 

"That's not true. Hermione, look at me." Ginny's gaze and voice were steady, and she held Hermione in place with both. "I didn't come out here to meet Dean tonight, I came to find you. I haven't stopped thinking about you since - as a matter of fact, since long before that day in the library." 

Hearing the words 'the library' seemed to have a soothing effect on Hermione. She didn't relax her wand, but neither did she turn away. 

"I'm still with Dean because I haven't thought about him for long enough to break up with him, which I know is horrible and selfish . . . but ever since we kissed that day he's only felt like a friend to me. I think he always has done, actually. I just didn't realize it before. But it's so glaringly obvious now that it's seems like he must know it as well, because kissing Dean feels like a day at the park with my Auntie Muriel, whereas kissing you feels like, flying through a fireworks display in the middle of a rainstorm."

Hermione looked quizzically at this final remark. "I'm not quite sure how to interpret that." 

"I don't blame you. I've never been as good with words as you are." 

"You make it sound as if we've snogged a hundred times."

"Well that's because I've relived it a hundred times over in my head, and fantasized about it at least- "

And then Hermione kissed her. Her lips, those lips that had imprinted themselves so deeply in Ginny's mind were now pressing themselves, first gently, then much more insistently against Ginny's own. Without a thought Ginny responded in kind, drawing Hermione's full lower lip between hers and sucking in hard, pulling Hermione towards her with the only part of her body not currently restrained by the elder witch's formidable wandwork. 

"Oh Merlin, what am I doing?" Hermione broke away, "You're still with Dean - and you're a Girl! Girls aren't supposed to feel like this!" But she looked into Ginny eyes once again, and whatever she saw there was enough to bring her back to Ginny's lips. She pulled away and came back several times in quick succession, so that one moment she was shaking her head with uncertainty, and the next she was exploring Ginny's mouth with sheer abandon. 

Ginny could feel her irresolution, and put everything she had into those brief moments when Hermione gave into her kiss. Her head was spinning and her insides were tight with longing. She strained against one kind of magic, desperate to give herself over to another, while her hands remained pinned traitorously against the wall.

Ginny still couldn't touch Hermione, but Hermione could touch her, and she did. Wrapping one hand behind Ginny's neck, she pressed the other palm-open, against her well-toned stomach. The wand which had been in Hermione's hand was now sandwiched between them. Ginny's hands fought fiercely to make contact, but Hermione's spell held strong. She groaned in frustration and Hermione smirked a little in Ginny's mouth. 

"Now you know how everybody else feels, fancying something and not being able to simply take it the moment you want it."

Another time, Ginny may have registered this comment as unfair. At present, however, it was all she could do to pant out while Hermione began moving in on her neck, "Please, Hermione, let me touch you." Ginny's stomach was heaving against Hermione's hand, which still held her wand pressed between them. The movement seemed to awaken it, and Hermione's fingers began sliding down toward the hem of Ginny's skirt. 

"No, I don't think so Gin. I'm taking a leaf out of your book, you see, and what I want is to do the touching." 

Ginny was too aroused to say anything in reply. Her abdomen came alive at the contact with Hermione's fingers. The wand shifted lower as Hermione's hand did the same, slipping under the hem of Ginny's skirt and brushing briefly along her knickers as it fell to the floor. Ginny let out a small groan of pleasure and shock. She wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the wand had actually ignited, given how hot and sensitized she felt from the moment of impact. 

Hermione's fallen wand signified the end of her concentration, and Ginny felt the resistance of the spell melt away. Instantaneously the magnetic push became an equally powerful pull and her arms were engulfing Hermione, freckled hands caressing every part of her that she could reach, encouraging the older girl's pursuit in any way she could think of. Dean had wanted to touch her there, but she had never even considered him. Now, with Hermione's fingers closing in on that exquisitely sensitive spot between her thighs, Ginny felt like she had waited a lifetime to be touched like this, there, and that she might burst from the anticipation. 

Just before Hermione's hand reached its target she hesitated for a fraction of a second, and Ginny was afraid that she was going to stop; to pull away; to decide that this had all been a huge mistake. Instead, Hermione sucked hard on the nape of Ginny's neck as she slid her fingers firmly downward along the length of her clitoris. Ginny's whole being shuddered with the pleasure of it and the muscles in her legs faltered. Hermione pressed her against the wall for support without breaking focus, and Ginny knew that, at last, Hermione was taking exactly what she wanted. 

*Extended Smutty Edition*

There were stars in Ginny's eyes blurring her senses and her vision as Hermione's fingers began to probe her plushy pink folds. To both of their astonishment, they were slick with wet and Hermione's fingers slid in between them. Ginny inhaled deeply as Hermione let out a feral sound like a low growl, causing Ginny to grind her hips forward so that Hermione's middle and index fingers slide deeper inside of her, up to the first knuckle. Both girls moaned and Hermione kissed Ginny fully on the mouth again as she began pulsing her fingers in and out, in and out. 

Ginny thought she must have done this before, even if she knew how unlikely that was - but the way Hermione held pace made it seem like she knew exactly what Ginny was feeling the instant she was feeling it. Soon the constraint of Ginny's underwear began to bother them both, and Hermione drew her hand out from under Ginny's skirt, to much protest.

But Ginny did not have long to be indignant. Hermione stooped to recover her wand, grabbed Ginny by the knot of her tie and dragged her sideways-and-backwards towards the nearest door. There was a click and Ginny stumbled over the threshold into a room she couldn't see because Hermione's tongue was suddenly gliding along the top of her own, and nothing else in the entire world existed.

She regained her sense of touch as she was toppled lightly backwards onto what felt like a rug. There was a small 'pop' and little flames burst to life somewhere nearby. Once she had regained the use of her vision, Ginny couldn't take her eyes off Hermione's face. She had never seen an expression like the one that resided there now: She was radiant - almost as if the light dancing across it was coming from within her, rather than the little fire without. 

Hermione, on the other hand, was all concentration, and she caught Ginny's gaze for only a moment through heavily lidded eyes before finding the hem of her knickers and pulling them smoothly down over Ginny's ankles. She was overcome with desire at the sudden removal of this final barrier. Instinctively, she spread her knees wide to give Hermione better access, and a small current of air passed over her wetness, sending a shiver up her spine. The older girl was blowing gently between Ginny's legs. She paused for a moment, hands holding Ginny's skirt aloft against her upper thighs, taking in the sight of soft, slick lips and little red curls. 

Then she leaned forward and kissed Ginny once, then again, and as she kissed her a third time her fingertips found their way back to Ginny's opening. This time her fingers did not hesitate. They plunged back into Ginny's center, quickly at first, then slowing as they reached their previous mark in order to savor the feeling of places even deeper and more profound. Ginny did not think that Hermione could ever go too far, ever be too much inside of her. Every time Hermione withdrew her fingers Ginny felt a small sense of longing, of worry that those fingers would disappear and leave her empty, leave her wanting. But each time they came back: firmer, deeper, filling a place that Ginny had never realized was a void before now. 

Soon the sensation began to take on a new quality: a hot, molten, vibrating thing that began to spread up through Ginny's insides towards her naval. Hermione sensed the change, and became almost solemn in the diligence of her movements. Deft fingertips curled upward as they thrust inward, then straightened out almost completely as they pulled away, only to curve gradually back towards that tantalizing place inside of her. Ginny's breathing grew fast and shallow, an she heard herself make a small, feminine noise that she would have never imagined could come out of her. The noise made Hermione sigh and redouble her concentration. 

Now Hermione's warm brown eyes were looking straight at Ginny, who could see firelight dancing in her irises whenever her own eyelids weren't fluttering closed in ecstasy. The intimacy of their gaze mingled with that tingling feeling which had risen now into Ginny's chest, and was threatening to overwhelm her entirely. Ginny found that she was fully prepared to let herself be taken over. To let Hermione take her over.

She heard herself begin to gasp and pant as her insides began to tighten and tremble around Hermione's fingers; and then she was crying out and her body was shaking and her toes were curling and she was grabbing onto whatever parts of Hermione she could reach, and Hermione was on top of her, holding her, panting and whispering in her ear and kissing her lips and her neck and the side of her face while her fingers still held firmly, pulsing softly inside of Ginny's taught, wet, shuddering center. 

For minutes or hours afterwards they lay like that together, pressed against one another with Hermione's fingers still buried deep inside of Ginny. A red head rested on Hermione's right arm while Hermione's fingers absentmindedly twirled red hair. Otherwise they were still, breathing in and out in tandem. Ginny didn't remember falling asleep, only waking up the next morning wrapped up in a knit blanket and Hermione. It was the happiest she could remember feeling in her whole life. 

Mercifully it was Saturday, and the owner of the office (Ginny suspected it was Professor Sinistra's, given the astrological charts and the beautiful golden orrery circulating in a far corner) had not determined it necessary to come in to do any early morning weekend work. She turned in towards Hermione's sleeping figure and kissed her lightly on the lips, eliciting a small, subconscious noise of contentment. After staring for a while at the peaceful expression on her face, tracing the curve of her ears, eyes, cheeks, nose, jaw with delicate fingertips, Ginny snuggled into the older girl's form and drifted blissfully back to sleep. 

. . .

Hearing her own name spoken aloud by Luna's amplified voice brought Ginny abruptly back to the present.

"... Ginny Weasley, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be looking for the snitch at all. Perhaps it's a new strategy, as she's usually quite good, although she has been a little distracted. She is a dear friend, maybe she's giving Ravenclaw another chance at the Cup. Or perhaps she's forgotten that she's playing Seeker today. Hello Ginny! There's not much use staying in one place, is there?" Luna waved amiably at her from the announcer's podium. 

Ginny chuckled self-consciously as she waved back and then set off to make a round of the pitch - quickly, as she noticed Cormac coming up fast behind her with a condescending and querulous look on his face. 

"Oh look, Cormac Mclaggen's gone after her. I wonder if he's decided to look for the snitch as well. After all, it is worth quite a bit more than the points scored using the quaffle. A bit silly, really..."

As laughter resounded throughout the stadium, Ginny began flying up and down the pitch in earnest, grateful once again to Luna for bringing her back to reality - for the third time today! This was not the moment to get caught up in her memories, no matter how beguiling. Her eyes darted all over in search of the snitch: towards the far goal posts, the castle, Hermione . . . lower towards the grounds, around the chasers, across the stands near Hermione . . . 

The huge magicked numbers on the scoreboard told her that Gryffindor was up by 240 points now, enough to win the cup. She chanced one last glance at those big brown eyes, which held hers in place in mid-air. Ginny couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a glint in them like she hadn’t seen since that night in the seventh floor corridor a month, an eon, a lifetime ago.

And then she saw a different glint, hovering some twenty feet above Hermione towards the center of the field. She gazed for half a second longer at the girl she loved, and then stole after the snitch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank You to Alexander Quilmane for his writings in Quintessential Magic on HogwartsisHere.com for the lesson in charms!  
> Not sure how to properly source on this site but I would very much like to give credit where it is due (any further info would be appreciated!)

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at writing fanfiction. I've been a huge fan of Ginny/Hermione for years, and wanted to give them space to have a relationship that still fits reasonably well within the existing story (I'm a die-hard canon kind of girl).  
> I have no fanfic friends so I would love to hear any thoughts/comments/suggestions anyone might have!
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> *Obviously* these are not my characters, I'm just borrowing them for love.


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